Separation Anxiety

The following takes place between 10am and 11:30am

During the whole service I was fidgeting, nothing gave me any comfort.

I can barely recollect anything that transpired. The readings, the sermon, the hymns were all a blur to me.

At least half a dozen times I checked the pager they gave me. Was the power on? Is it receiving a signal? Did I miss the alarm somehow?

Once the offering had been made I began to get edgy knowing the end was near. Taking our seats in the pew after we had received communion my wife took my hand and squeezed it tight. As if the look on her face wasn’t enough, she finally said it.

“I miss him.”

That’s when it hit us, we were experiencing our first bout of separation anxiety.

For the first time in our son’s nearly two years on this earth we entrusted his care to someone we did not know. Actually, it was the first time we left him alone with anyone that wasn’t either his Grammie or Oma.

It was a strange and unnerving feeling. What if he needed us? What if something happened to him?

The recession hymn couldn’t end fast enough. We collected ourselves and bounded down to steps towards the nursery to collect our son.

As we swung open the door we found an empty room and my heart began to sink. We quickly looked at each other and wondered where he could be. Where were the other children who had been in the room? For that matter, where was the woman who was supposed to be watching him while we attended services?

Finally, we turned to look at the far end of the room and there he was having his diaper changed, smiling at us. A wave of relief set in for me as the panic that had reared it ugly head began to subside.

By all appearances he was completely unphased that we had just left him with a complete stranger for a little over an hour. There was a room full of new toys to play with and different books to read.

For us, however, it was a bit more difficult. I have spent the sum total of three days away from my son. He is my little buddy, my constant companion.

Even though I knew where he was, it was still a very strange experience for me to be somewhere without him. And though my wife surely misses him every day she goes to work, she is comforted by the fact that at any time she can call me to see how is doing, and, now that he’s talking, even get the random word out of him.

I realize that at some point he’ll be going to school, making friends and relying on me less and less as he gets older. Still it was a very surreal experience for me.

Much is made about separation anxiety in children, but I’ve just learned a pretty good lesson about the separation anxiety that can exist in parents.