Leah restlessly drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch. Maybe she should call Malka? No, she bit her lip, Malka had a house full of kids, she wouldn’t be able to talk. Sarah? Ditto. Rachel was on vacation with her husband in Florida. Leah’s own children were busy at this hour taking care of their little ones, just as she had been doing not to long ago. Meir was her only unmarried child and he was living two states away while in yeshiva. Her husband, Yitz, worked late every night, which left Leah to herself. She could, she supposed, take a walk around the lake but it was lonely walking alone.
She got up and aimlessly moved around the living room. She stepped into the playroom and gazed at the games piled neatly one on top of the other in the closet and the toys carefully in their places on the shelves. She sighed. Once upon a long time ago, she had complained that her children’s games never remained in their original boxes for more than a day. She could never understand how other mothers were able to retain the original boxes. Her kids had either ripped them into shreds or lost them as soon as they possibly could as if they thought it was part of the ritual of receiving gifts. She spied a forlorn green plastic soldier in the corner. A grandchild must have thrown it there. She returned it to its bucket.
She looked up. Adorning the walls were pictures of her children and grandchildren. Gosh, they were adorable. She tore her gaze from the pictures and looked down at the immaculately swept floor. What now? What should she do on this long summer evening? It’s not fair, she thought irritably. I’m not used to this question. She did not know how to fill the empty time.
She moved to the kitchen. The sink that had once been overloaded with dishes that Leah never seemed to be on top of was now empty, not even a lone spoon sulking in the corner. She ran her fingers around the sink walls. Nope, no grime.
There was a buzzing noise. Leah jumped. It was the cell phone in her pocket. It had been silent for so long she had forgotten about it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mommy,” a cheery voice rang out on the other end, “how are you? Just wanted to ask you a quick favor. Could you watch the baby tomorrow while I run some errands, I know tomorrow is your day off.”
“Sure, I’d love to, Mindy,” Leah answered sincerely.
“Great see you at 12.”
Finally, something to do.
Since her youngest daughter had married a few months ago, and Meir had moved off to yeshiva, Leah went through the same boredom ritual. She would walk from room to room looking for some housekeeping duty she might have missed. (There never was any). She would not stoop to begging her daughters to visit or call. Of that she was determined. Absorbed in their own whirlwind of babies, diapers, dishes, school, they did not notice that Leah had quietly slipped out of that world, losing her footing along the way. They did not consider that she might need some help regaining her balance. Yitz was completely absorbed in his work and his learning schedule and would not have noticed Leah’s listlessness, unless she lay on the floor in front of the door forcing him to walk over her as he stepped into the house, she thought a little bitterly.
You could just tell him how you’re feeling, whispered a sensible voice in Leah’s head. But Leah was feeling resentful. Resentful of all the active, vibrant people with meaning in their lives while she walked around the rooms looking for minute crumbs to sweep up. She was not going to plead for help.
The worst was when she did get through to her friends or younger neighbors and they would say things like, “You’re so lucky the kids are out of the house, I can’t wait until mine all leave. I’ll finally be able to relax a little.” Then they’d laugh and sigh and turn around to chase their two-year-old. “I cannot stay on top of the laundry,” another neighbor would lament. “I’m so tired at the end of the day I fall into bed and don’t move until I have to get up again in the morning.”
I’m also so tired at the end of the day, Leah thought but did not say, because I do nothing when I get home.
“When I ‘retire’ from my children,” said another, “I’m going to take up painting, it’s something I always wanted to do. Right now, my schedule is too crazy.”
It was Leah’s turn. She was supposed to laugh and sigh and say airily, “Oh, I wish I was able to take it easy now that the kids are gone, but you know I’m still so busy between work and my grandchildren that I don’t know where the time goes.”
It seemed that society esteemed running around frantically trying to catch up with yourself, that if you could be so busy you couldn’t exhale, it was a good thing. Leah knew all about it. She had been so busy with her family and work for years, there were times she even felt she was going to have a breakdown. She got oohs and aahs from friends and neighbors and even strangers. “What a hero you are,” she remembered one Russian immigrant that she had invited over for Shabbos say to her. “You have a six-month-old baby and you go out to work.” Now, who was she?
And the real rub was that she too had longed for the day the kids would be grown and gone and she would be free to do her own thing. Now that the time was here, she found she was terrified. Besides she didn’t even know what her own “thing” was. And she found she didn’t want to change anything. She had a schedule before, perhaps an overburdening one but it was regular, it was steady, it was her routine.
One day, Meir surprised her. He had come in for a wedding and he knocked on the door. When no one answered he let himself in. “Mommy,” he called. But Leah didn’t hear him. She was too busy staring at the second hand on the big black Roman numeral numbered cherry wood grandfather clock opposite where she lay on the living room couch. She was mesmerized by the thought of her life literally ticking by. Meir walked in, a concerned look on his face. “Mommy, are you sick?”
“No, just tired. I was up late last night, couldn’t fall asleep, I’m fine.”
Meir looked at her skeptically. “Mommy, what do you do when you get home from work?” He asked suddenly.
Leah started. “I um I don’t know, whatever needs to be done.”
“Yeah, but it just hit me, now that we’re all out of the house, what do you do?”
“I’m fine, I was just a little tired,” she said again as she jumped up from the couch. “I’m glad you stopped by. Can I give you something to eat?” and Leah started chattering not giving Meir the opportunity to say anything else. The next day, Sarah stopped by with the baby. This time she found Leah sitting on the recliner mindlessly fingering the mauve tassels of the half-closed window shades. Leah did not notice until she heard a shrill wail from the baby in her arms. “Hi Mom,” Sarah said, “we were in the neighborhood and decided to pop in.”
Yeah, right, Leah thought. Clearly Meir had mentioned something. Leah quickly stood up, hitching a smile on her face.
“How’s work?” Sarah asked.
“Great,” Leah answered, “they just made a goodbye party for Max, he’s retiring after 40 years.”
They schmoozed a bit, Sarah sneaking peeks at her mother attempting to see what Meir was talking about. “So, Mom,” she said in what she hoped was a casual voice, “how are you keeping yourself busy now that we’ve all left home?”
“Oh, this and that,” Leah answered, in what she hoped was an offhand tone. “You know, work is stressful. Now that Max is retiring, I’ll be the only bookkeeper in the company, that’ll be a lot more work for me. I need to unwind when I get home. Then there’s the house to keep, you know how particular Abba is about everything being in its proper place.”
Considering there was no one home anymore to disturb anything, there was barely anything for her to do but she chose not to mention that.
Sarah wasn’t fooled. “Well, I have to go home and make supper for Efraim,” said Sarah, “I’ll try to come again soon.”
“Thanks so much for coming darling, I know how busy you are with your family, I appreciate your stopping by. Give a kiss to the kids for me.”
After Sarah left, Leah sighed. She set the table for her husband who would return from work any minute only to pop out again to daven and learn, and resigned herself to another night that melded into the one before and would meld into the one afterward. At least she had her work during the day.
But as the weeks went by, Leah’s restlessness turned into lethargy and the lethargy into low-grade depression. She was spending more and more time in bed. She would drag herself out to babysit the grandchildren from time to time and prepare suppers for her husband. She still washed the laundry and went to work, but most evenings and nights and even her days off were spent lying curled up in bed staring at the beams of sunlight slowly fading from the wall as the deepening shadows of night came on.
She knew she was stuck in a rut but had no idea how to extricate herself. Thankfully, her good friend, Rachel, alerted by Leah’s children and noticing herself that Leah was spending more and more time complaining how exhausted she was, confronted her.
“What’s up, Leah?” she said as she walked in the door. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” said Leah for the umpteenth time since that day Meir had shown up, but this time she burst into tears.
***
Years later, Leah, now a licensed social worker, could not say how she would have gotten through that transition time without Rachel.
“You know, there is life after children,” Rachel had said with a small smile, as she held her in her arms and patted her on the shoulder. “You do have other talents besides child rearing, you just have to dig them up, dust them off and work on them.”
But stepping out of her comfort zone and trying something new at age 50 was frightening. Rachel encouraged her to see a psychotherapist and was with her through each obstacle. Every night she drove over, usually to find Leah lying down in bed or on the couch, and would drag her out. Together they’d look online for all the different options for study and employment. After a few months, they had narrowed it down. Rachel pushed Leah to call neighbors, friends or family that were in these professions to get some advice. Together, with her therapist’s approval, they concluded that going to social work school while difficult might be just the stimulation she needed.
Social work school had been immensely difficult especially as she was still working. Often, she’d call Rachel up and say, “That’s it. I can’t take this anymore. I’m too old to be sitting and studying for tests.”
Rachel would invariably answer, “Fine, go back to bed, I’m sure you’ll be happier there.”
Her sarcastic retort always renewed Leah’s commitment to slog on. And now she was an LCSW (licensed certified social worker), working at an agency and counseling privately in the evenings.
Leah thankfully never did find the time to lie listlessly on the couch watching her life tick by, but she still made sure to find the time to babysit for her grandchildren.