Grim Determination

So, we are smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. We just celebrated our first Thanksgiving with our whole family together.  It was great. Good food, good conversation, passing around my seriously adorable niece, Eleanore...

All of my kids had fun. At least, I think they did.  These family celebrations have proved to be difficult for Hana.

 I knew they might, so we talked about it ahead of time. She had a billion questions, "Where will we eat? What will we eat? Do they have a table? Will we sit at the table? What will Eleanore do while we are eating? What will Eleanore do while we are cooking? What can we play with?" Etc. Things that would never have occurred to me to tell her.  She had a lot of anxiety about the whole thing, even though I kept telling her it was just a meal. A meal like any other meal we have with our extended family. Lots of people adoring her, lots of food she likes... all fun stuff.

I knew in an abstract way why Hana would be nervous. She'd never done Thanksgiving before, and she likes to do things right. Not just right... the BEST.  If she is going to do Thanksgiving, she wants to do whatever Thanksgiving is better than anyone has EVER done Thanksgiving.  Feeling like that is stressful, I'm sure.  But I never connected the dots. Never understood in a concrete way why this is so hard, until we went to get our Christmas tree.

I wanted it to be fun... we went through the whole day's plan. First we'll eat breakfast. Then we will get dressed and drive to the tree farm. Then we will pick a tree that we like and cut it down. Then we will bring it home.  It wasn't enough. Hana was in tears.  She needed to know how we cut it down. She needed to know how we will pick the right tree. She needed to know how it would be carried into the house, where it would sit and how it would stay upright.  It was all just so... stressful.  This fun, happy, first Christmas tree experience wasn't fun or happy or exciting... and I didn't understand.

Until we were in the car on the way to the tree farm.  Nathan and I started singing Jingle Bells. Meron joined in.  Hani didn't know the song, so we tried to teach it to her.  She attacked that song with grim determination, just as she does every new thing she wants to master. She demanded we tell her the lyrics again and again.  And it hit me like a ton of bricks.  This is what her life has been for the past year.  Exactly this.

Everyone around her knows what to do. They know the expected behavior and the expected emotions. They understand the give and take of their family and school. They communicate with an ease that must seem very like telepathy to someone who doesn't see the small signals.  And she tries.  Oh she tries. She attacks every situation with that same grim determination to fit in. To feel like as much a part of the action as everyone else. To feel like she is part of this new, strange world she has landed in.  She has no context for Christmas or Jingle Bells, Thanksgiving or Halloween.  She doesn't know why the songs she has worked so hard to learn are suddenly exchanged for new songs that everyone knows but her.  She studies those around her so that she knows how to act and what is expected.  She asks questions when she gets nervous so that when we get to this mysterious "Thanksgiving" she won't be the only one who doesn't know what is going on.

It brought tears to my eyes.  I can't imagine how exhausting and discouraging this task is.  No wonder any change in the routine she has learned is met with anxiety.  It is just a new situation that she has to analyze and master, with no associations of the joy that come with it.  She doesn't have any, "Remember when's" to talk about or pictures to look at.  We survived getting the Christmas tree home and put up in the stand.  We assured Hana that we didn't need to feed it, just give it water.  We got out the decorations and practiced some more Christmas songs and taught our daughter how to hang ornaments.  And then I remembered. Last year, we bought an ornament for her.  I found it in the box and told her that it was hers from last Christmas. I said that we were so sad that you weren't home with us then, and I picked this ornament out especially for you. And that I was so happy that this year she was here to pick out her own ornament.  Her whole face lit up as she hugged it to herself. She said, "Yes, this is from our tree last year. I know." and hung her ornament up on our tree.  She helped put the star on top and stood and looked at it, smiling.

Here's to firsts. And to the fact that next year, she'll have some "Remember when's" of her own.