In books: Finding Gilbert, A Promise Fulfilled: Diane Covington-Carter grew up haunted by her father’s stories of his time in France during World War II and the orphan boy, Gilbert, who he tried to adopt and bring home. Fifty years after the war, can she possibly find Gilbert to tell him that her father never forgot him? Order the book.
Today's word: appartenir
: to belong
Listen to the following sentence in French, click here
On donne tout à nos enfants y compris des peurs qui ne leur appartiennent pas. –Lyse Desroches
We give all to our children including fears that do not belong to them.
A DAY IN A FRENCH LIFE…by Kristi Espinasse
Now that our daughter lives an ocean away in Colorado, I've become a stalker. I regularly check her social media accounts, hoping for a video or photo, and, throughout the day I log on to Messenger to see if she's active, or live. I know, it is pathetic and I'm starting to feel like a real creep!
I yearn for a voice clip from my 21-year-old or any scrap she might share, but what I most often get is a one-word reply, in English: Yes! (Yes (she's fine). Yes (she is awake). Yes (she is on her way to work). So I try to word my questions differently: Tell me three highlights of your day, I type into the little box that has replaced our lively in-person conversations.
As always, I edit my note so as not to be overbearing: Tell me just one highlight of your day…
from the French Alps…to the Colorado Rockies…
I don't want to be pushy, manipulating, or agaçante. I'm just living vicariously through my grown child–while trying to edit all the regrets of my past so that she doesn't suffer the same erreurs de jeunesse.
Have you heard from Jackie? my sister in Denver asks. What's the latest with Jax? our father, in Palm Springs wants to know. Lately, readers are asking for updates, too. So here's, hélas, as much as I know:
In November Jackie moved to a popular ski area in the Colorado mountains. My friend Stacey, who lives there and who I've known since we (and my sister and my mom, too!) worked together in a ski shop in Phoenix, welcomed Jackie to stay with her until our newbie expat could find permanent accommodations. Her first appointment (via Craigslist) left Jackie mal à l'aise (it may have been the couple in question–a polite way to say questionable couple–or their attack dog…).
Soon after Jackie found another roommate situation and was thrilled to tell me about the beautiful apartment. The complex even had a jacuzzi! There was just one itty bitty pépin: 5 people would be sharing the space–two to a room. Next she mentioned one of the girls would share with a guy. Which girl? Jackie?
No! Our Colorado transplant assured me, she'd be sharing with a girl–in a room with one bed. (How many of you reading would be comfortable sharing a bed with a stranger–guy or girl?)
Ouf! Within a week our daughter realized that she's a room of one's own kind of person, and quickly found another place (while keeping her ex-roommates as friends. Bien fait!). Now she lives with two girls and each has her own chambre.
That leaves transportation. (Jackie n'a pas une bagnole.) The new pad is farther from the bus stop, meaning that when Jackie finishes her nightshift she must walk another 10 minutes home in the dark (and snow). Hurrah for Uber, which she now uses at night (she walks during the day). It makes a dent in her tips, but is worth everyone's peace of mind!
Apart from her job as a server at the hotel, Jackie is a holiday extra in a ski shop, where she will make even more friends, as I did at her age (Bonjour, Stacey!). That brings us to free time. Just what is she doing with her temps libre?
…I see videos of pool halls, jacuzzis, drinks. As I scrutinize the images–those I've gobbled on social media–I wonder if she's dating and ask as much….
Mom, a little privacy, please, comes the 5-word response.
Harrumph! OK, a little bit of privacy. So can I still give my mini-me a few life tips? (I have some ideas on how to keep up her work wardrobe (buy three pairs of black pants!) and her banking (put those tips right into your account. You don't want cash lying around!).
Mom, most tips aren't in cash these days, they're on the credit card receipt. (Ooh, her responses are getting longer!)
But my latest suggestion did not even merit a reply. Learning she was shopping at Walmart, I texted: buy a mattress cover for your bed!
And that, dear reader, was the abrupt end to my butting in. (When she spills hot chocolate in her bed and it ruins the mattress–she can pay her landlord's $$$ fee! She'll have to learn her own lessons just as I had to learn mine. Isn't that the bottom line? Isn't that the only way to grow and mature? I am not helping my daughter by finding a solution to every single problem…at least those she shares with me…).
Speaking of lessons, this one's for me: this lesson I am learning now of letting my daughter live her life. This brings me to her latest sms, a bittersweet pronouncement:
So sorry I'm not present anymore…it's just that I am living my life.
Oh…Ah…Aw! I sighed reading it. What more could we want for our children, que de vivre leur vie. I trust Jackie knows I am here if she needs me. Have your hot chocolate ready, My Girl, and give me a call.
Photo of me and Jackie taken in 1997, near St. Maximin
FRENCH VOCABULARY
appartenir = to belong to
agaçant = annoying, irritating
une erreur de jeunesse = youthful indiscretion
hélas = unfortunately
mal à l'aise = ill-at-ease, uncomfortable
le pépin = snag, hitch or glitch
ouf! = phew!
bien fait = well done
la chambre = room
elle n'a pas une bagnole = she doesn't have a car
le temps libre = free time
vivre leur vie = to live their life
Discover more from French Word-A-Day
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Can you get WhatsApp & Face Time & can Jackie ? It is a great way of keeping of in touch with far flung family What sApp particularly because it works like an immediate text .
Hope this can help you .
Audrey x
I chuckle as I read this! But….maybe she is checking on you via your blog, etc! Courage for The Journey!
Bon chance chère Jackie et bon courage chère Kristi xoxo
J’adore French word a day. I recently retired after 44 years of teaching French and your stories keep me connected to the language and culture I love…and miss. Merci.
Martha
Paypal sent under separate cover
You raised her right, so trust her! She loves you and wouldn’t do anything to hurt you or disappoint you. She is a lovely young lady, and I was thrilled to meet her and you!
Love and hugs!!
Marika
I can certainly relate, as my daughter lives in Germany, very happily. I visited her for a month last August and found I had to trust her abilities. I also found she was a great cook and gardener (she has a beautiful flower/vegetable garden). She has inherited generations of green thumbs from my grandparents back to great great grandparents. I also check Instagram and Whatsapp for tidbits of news from her. I wish she would write more, but when she does write, I take comfort that she’s writing because she needs my help with words of “Mama!” Help me with this! I am glad to respond. I miss her terribly but am terribly proud of her in her success and adventure.
You are a wonderful mother and she is so lucky! Bon courage!
Kristi – I think the key thing that you have ALREADY taught your children is how to analyze and solve their problems. It is like our formal education – there is no way school can teach you everything you need. What is should teach you is how to analyze, research and solve problems. If you have done that with your two children, trust them to take that with them all their lives. Yes, they will sometimes make a mistake and spill that hot chocolate, but that is all part of the learning process and databank you build for analyzing and solving future problems.
This post brings home to me how my mother and father must have felt when I (their only child) left England all those years ago. No social media then, transatlantic phone calls were expensive and mostly for special occasions — and you actually had to book a call in advance for Christmas Day then wait for the international operator to call you with a connection! We wrote letters, lots and lots of them. I wrote at least once a week. My parents kept all of my letters and I desperately regret tossing the boxes of letters in the hurry and hassle of clearing their house when they went into assisted living. I do have the occasional letters on tape that we exchanged (very high tech in those days!) and now that they are long dead, it’s lovely to still hear their voices.
You have done your job in raising her and giving her all the tools she needs for this new life. She will do just fine. She will probably make a couple of mistakes, but will be fine. Look, already she(alone) has solved the living situation. Check on the FaceTime ….it does cross the ocean. And if you do get it…..work something out with Jacquie that once a week you talk via it. That way you won’t feel like you are infringing on her life. You lived your dream, and maybe this is hers. She will always love you, no matter what.
Poor darling Kristi, I know it all and feel for you. After my Joey left home, I sniffed her pillow for weeks before washing it……and getting on with it!!!
Bonjour, Kristi,
Don’t forget to suggest to Jackie that you and she skype each other from time to time. I hope that will ease some of your separation anxiety.
As usual, your honesty about your concern for Jackie makes me say, “She’s just like me!” I was anxious when each of ours left far from the nest. When they shared with me challenges in their lives, I was quick to offer several solutions. But we all come to the conclusion sooner or later that they need to lead their own lives and maybe even make a few mistakes. They know we love them and we’re their safety net. Bravo for you. Joyeux Noel!
My guess is that she will have her time in the U.S. and then be very happy to return to France!
You will get through this as the time passes and you realize she is perfectly fine. I am wondering if she reads your blog….
bOY, jACKIE is so lucky to have much more freedom than we Third Agers had, n’est-ce pas?Soyez brave, cherie.
children just cannot realize/ fathom how much their parents love them!! I am going through similar as every parent does I guess
You just realize how YOUR dream of life and all your knowledge, experience and expertise doesn’t pass to your child and they must start out from the beginning every time!! It’s painful and lonely on the parent dude and annoying for the child, err young adult!
Lol “dude” was a typo ha my age is showing!
PS I use IMO for messaging, audio and video. When messaging it shows the letters as they are being typed so it is in real time and a better unedited experience with your kids, (when you can get them live)!
I feel your pain. I am lucky to get short texts from my daughter-well she IS 31 ( but alone in LA). We never stop worrying I realize. I think back when I left for college, I rarely talked with my parents. I was too busy!! Of course we only had landline telephones & US mail. I too lived in CO after college- in Aspen, working in a ski shop- early 70s!
Rest assured if she needs you, you will hear from her-no news is good news!!
I was teaching French in Minnesota when my younger daughter went to University of Wisconsin. She decided to take a class in French.She had studied it for a few years in high school and was taking an advanced class.I had not heard from her for a week so I called and I asked her how things were going. Just fine but “Mom I am having a an exam and I don’t understand the subjunctive.Can you help?” At that point I figured if that was her biggest worry she would be just fine. Pas de Nouvelles, bonnes Nouvelles. Jackie will be just fine. Not to worry.
Janine
Such a sweet story!
Hi Kristi,
Boy, I can relate to this post! I do the same thing….just looking for any way to connect and see how my children are doing. It’s a tough transition for us mamas …. Love the photos of you and Jackie!
Your talent knocks me out, Kristi. <3
Our dear Kristi,
Today’s picture(especially with you and your darling baby girl)just really brought home how fleeting is time–to appreciate these seconds because the future ones will be sweet(for sure)but different.
I applaud Jackie for going after her dreams,and especially her mom for telling her about her wings– and then showing her how to use them.
Bravo to you both!
Love
Nat alia .Xo
Kristi,
Your mother should have added to the blog. She could share her feelings when
her daughter was in another country. Probably a similar story to yours.
I think there are a lot of your readers, including myself, who can relate to missing our child, not matter what the age, who lives far away – and still wanting to ‘help’ them out with our ‘good advice.’ – sometimes appreciated, sometimes not. We want to ‘save’ them from making mistakes! But, like many have said, that’s what growing up is all about, successes and learning from making their own mistakes – very difficult to stand by. It is definitely a challenge! We love them so much and want their life to be wonderful, and easy! I’m lucky in that my daughter has a relatively long drive home and often calls me during her drive. I think it’s mostly to pass the time, but I love to hear her voice and to just chit chat about mundane and even some important things, and just to laugh together!! We’re with you, Kristi!
Dear Kristi,
My daughter has been in the US for over five years, four spent at uni, now she’s out into the big wide world post-graduation.
Gentle hugs to you, I’ve been where you are. My DD and I have evolved our relationship and she messages me on FB, now more regularly than in her first years in the States.
Your relationship will find its balance, as Jackie matures, and as does the novelty of her new life.
You gave her wings, and that my friend is one of the greatest blessings a parent can offer their child.
I know it is tough right now, depend upon us too, we have your back. xx
Dear Kristi,
Our daughters have been on their own for 20 years and we have been in touch with them almost daily, at first through phone calls and now calls and texts. I have always just needed to know that they are okay.
We have gone from reluctant acquiescence to a need from them to be in touch to know that their parents are okay. I was recently told that we need to be checked on because we are getting old! And so we come full circle.
I believe that the most comfort comes to parents in knowing their children are safe. I have come to learn it works the other way as well.
Jackie and Max will get there. It just takes time. Meanwhile giving them wings, as you do, can be difficult, but oh so wonderful for them!
I kept thinking of how you spent time in France when you were near the same age. Did you perhaps spill some chocolat chaud? You have your mother close at hand–ask her how she felt about your absence. After all she did not have Facebook, or texting or whatever to keep track of you while you partied and met a handsome man and decided to stay in France!! Ah, but maybe that’s why you worry?
Familiar, so familiar! A mother’s maturing WISDOM, n’est-ce pas? This gingery newly minted bond with a distant daughter is a challenge all right. What you describe is just as I was with my clever, kind, and loving Maman who, I believed, was capable de tout, and from whom I had to maintain some distance even into adulthood in order to find out who *I* was without forever checking in with her.
And just like my own daughter — two decades older than Jackie — who loves me a lot and yet (still) is touchy about my making random contact with her. Especially when she is ‘finding her way’in a situation. Unless she asks me to consult, as she sometimes does, and then I gulp back the thrill and quietly, consciously listen.
As with you, my posts, emails, texts, personal messages, pretty much stay unacknowledged or get only the briefest reply. I recall for years feeling just as she must: “Oh, Mum, please show that you trust me to live on my own terms, without having to report to you. I will always call on you when I truly need to. I know you are there for me forever.”
You’re right — big sigh: A lasting need for reassurance now runs quietly in a new direction — from me to her. It’s a constant undercurrent in me since she left my care nearly a quarter-century ago, and that’s what it is to be an ‘hsp’ mother. I accept that.
A daughter’s independence is ours to protect, with pride in our doing so. Our ‘girls’ respond if/when we have critical need of them. May that remain rare for a long while to come, while the love pours silently between us and them!
S’il vous plait traduisez ‘hsp’ mother et ‘sms’. Merci!
You always said she thought the USA was “better”. Is this for the ski season? I used to ski all of the ski areas that you could reach in a days drive from Denver so I can picture her in her new rolls. But I am confused? Did she give up design school? How about her handsome boyfriend?
Thanks for the update on Jackie. It is so hard letting go and do we ever really let go?
Sending hugs.
I’m in the same boat! My 26 year old daughter is in New Zealand. Facetime is nice, but the time difference (17 hours for us!) complicates chatting. Maybe you could work out a set time weekly: Sunday late morning for her would be early evening for you. Or even a weekly email. But yes, remember that you have raised a competent child. She’s seen you and JM evaluate and regroup, and did the same for herself in the apartment hunt. My daughter also tends to take her problems to her older sister, obviously much closer in age and experiences. Check with Max, and see if he can reassure you.