Adam Huening
Greensburg
April 23, 2008 02:16 pm
—
I’m not running behind, but I feel like I’m late for something.
As editor, there’s always something to do - a phone call to make, an e-mail to reply to or send, a story for me to stay one step ahead of or a cause to get behind. I get dressed and gather my things - my camera bag, cell phone, iPod. The sun is shining in through the big picture window of our new house, illuminating the whole room in beautiful pale yellow, making the edges of my little girl’s hair glow red and blond as she constructs yet another animal rescue center with her blocks and menagerie of animals.
I give her a kiss on the top of her head. She looks up at me with those big, blue 2-year-old eyes, the ones that make me melt.
“You build animal rescue center with me, dada,” she says sweetly.
I’m already corralling Finn, who has stopped mid-crawl to turn and see what’s going on with inquisitive eyes. I give him a kiss on the top of his bald head and break the news.
“Not now, honey. Daddy’s got to go to work,” I say it gently and matter-of-factly.
She sulks her head in dejection.
“Daddy’s got to go to work. No, daddy. No.”
I can almost hear her little heart breaking.
I try to reassure her.
“I’ll be back soon, and we can build an animal rescue center then.”
This is not acceptable, but she tries hard to make it work.
“Oh, all right,” she says and goes back to building but slower.
I leave them with my wife and head out, the screen door shutting loudly, letting out almost a sad sigh as it closes sharply. I hop down the concrete steps in the bright sunlight and squash the guilt and minor heart ache welling in my throat. There’s 19 steps between the stairs and the gate give or take a few. That’s 19 steps I have to swallow my guilt; 19 steps to let it go before I put my hand on the gate or I’d never open it.
Life stinks. Life is unbelievably amazing.
When I idly complain about these facts of my life, my wife likes to say it’s the profession I’ve chosen, the lifestyle of a journalist that makes the day-to-day so hectic, the heartache so prevalent. I tell her I don’t buy that, and I don’t. I chose this profession. I could’ve chosen any profession. I probably could’ve been a doctor, thought about being a lawyer, almost became a teacher. It wouldn’t matter what profession I was in, I would still have to deal with heartache. Daddy’s got to go to work.
I am not unique in this respect. Thousands of people in this community deal with the same thing everyday in different capacities. At least my wife can stay home and be with the children, to financial detriment. Some kids see more of their baby-sitters than they do of their parents. It doesn’t make any of us bad. It’s a fact of life. To make it in this world, to provide the life we want for our children, we all have to work. Very few people are independently wealthy, and this is why we despise those people secretly, and publicly love them in the hopes their wealth will rub off on us so we will never have to hear those dejected words from our children again. We play the lottery in the hopes to attain that wealth because most of us will never be blessed with a benevolent billionaire benefactor. Like me, many of us search for professions they would do even if they were independently wealthy. If I won the lottery, I’d still work for the newspaper. They wouldn’t even have to pay me.
Some people aren’t as lucky. They work jobs they despise just to ensure their children have all the things they need. They work long hours, endure the stress of their daily lives not because they are gluttons for punishment. They don’t wish to work dismal jobs they can’t stand because they’re masochists. They do it for their children, so that heartache of leaving everyday from work doesn’t become the heartache of no roof over their heads, no food in their stomachs, no future.
We work for the hope life will be better.
That’s why my parents worked, and they worked hard. They wanted a better future for my sister and I. So they worked different shifts or had to rely on baby-sitters as they went off to that mind-numbing place and toil away their days in the hopes we would do better. My sister and I both went to college. My parents didn’t. My sister has a good job with a major company. I’m the editor of the hometown newspaper. In some respects, it paid off.
I try to remember that as I drive away from that confused baby boy and that dejected little girl building an animal rescue center with less zeal. I try to remember, in the end, I hope they will thank us for it, like we thank our parents and their parents before them. I try to remember, everyday, everyone is a hero to someone.
It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
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