Pater Familias

Rainy days are always a source of frustration (and inspiration if you are lucky enough to have it strike you) for parents of young children.  It is especially hard if the factory is down one man (or one woman as the case may be).  This Saturday wasn’t supposed to be rainy, but it’s New England where the weather can change on a dime.  The kids and I had plans to spend the day at our friend Tobey’s lake cabin in Goshen, frolicking in the sunshine and water, of course.  But Mother Nature had other plans, and we just had to work around them.

Tobey is a 39-year-old public defense attorney, never married, never had kids and never wants either.  As one friend wittily couched it, he’s “unattachable” and argues quite deftly for that position.  Yet you can tell that he’d be a great dad by the way he fawns over his Labrador retriever.  I know…a dog is not a kid.  My ex and I sure learned that.

Despite the glimpses into his softer side, Tobey gives the impression that he is an irascible, prototypical bachelor with less than progressive views on women and relationships.  He’s a tough karate dude who could take most men down in a heartbeat (or kill them in court, pick your poison).  Nevertheless, over the last nine months or so, he has become not only one of my closest friends, but also my so-called platonic boyfriend and sort of Uncle Tobey to the kids.  His relationship with them really started via the weekly karate lessons that he gives them, yet it has transcended the dojo both physically and emotionally.

I’m sure that Tobey never expected, however, to be hosting two divorcees and playing pater familias to their four children on a rainy day in June 2010.  But host extraordinaire he was.  Despite the moms’ reluctance to go to a lake cabin in the pouring rain, Tobey convinced us we’d have fun.  We’d cook lunch, play games and hang out.  With no better idea than that, we did it.  Tobey had packed asparagus, corn, veggie sausages, chips, salad and enough towels for my family alone.  He even had these great enviable insulated bags.  He was more prepared than me.  I did marinate some chicken breasts (which only I ate) and brought 3 beers and half a bottle of wine (which only I drank).

Our friend Mel, a yogini divorcee who in progressive Massachusetts provides alimony for her former wife, rounded out the group with her two girls. We all ate lunch together (with everyone sitting, can you believe it?) with Tobey at the head of the table where his grandfather, who built the cabin 50 or so years ago, used to sit.  After lunch, the moms and kids played games while Tobey cleaned up.  The kids actually got in the lake and made sand castles in the cold and foggy weather and had a ball.  Then Mel and I cuddled up on the couch and worked the crossword puzzle while Tobey toted the kids around on the “Tobey train” to an endless chorus of “Do it to me.  Do it to me.”

Well perhaps there is nothing particularly insightful or funny to this post.  It was just remarkable for me because it was such a sweet day.  This guy that I met last summer in yoga hosts us in his home and plays daddy for the day to our kids.  It is endlessly surprising (and touching) to me the many directions that love can take and all the wonderful ways in which we form family constellations.

We arrived back at my house around 5 pm after dropping off the kids with my ex, and Tobey, of course, had to head home immediately for a nap because…damn…raising kids is a very tiring job.

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