100% Single Parent

 100% Single Parent

Hello, my name is Katie, and I am a single mother.  I have full custody of my daughter and I have MS.  

Single parents and only single parents completely understand this.  Single parents with MS get it even more. 

I did not understand until I suddenly became one myself with a text that said, “I think we should get divorced.”  God, I haven’t told anyone that because I was so embarrassed.  At the time, he wasn’t living with us and hadn’t been for 3 months.  We weren’t separated, either.  

It is complicated.  He hadn’t been around for 3 months really, and I was doing everything on my own.  Towards the end of that 3 months, he was around a little until he wasn’t.  After those 3 months, he was around a little and then he was completely gone.  I was the parent 100% of the time.  Everything was on me.  All of the love, all of the care, all of the safety.  All of the bills and appointments.  Finding the therapist for Áine explaining to her primary care who helped us find the therapist and pay for the therapist.  Letting her school know, again, that her daddy wasn’t around.  Putting on a smile and hiding the pain to the world around us.  Going to Girl Scout meetings, soccer practices and games, gymnastics, and parties and participating in the small-talk, the chit-chat so no one would know what we were going through.  

Being completely on our own.  Navigating all of it just the two of us.  Áine and I have always been a good team.  We traveled together in Europe for 3 weeks when she was just 4 years old.  It was usually the two of us as he worked 6 days a week.  We were used to it, mostly.  I wasn’t used to preparing all of the meals.  Taking care of the house inside and out.  Cutting the grass and our huge hedgerows on either side of the house were things not in my wheelhouse until they had to be.  Taking care of myself.

When you are in the middle of a crisis, you put one foot in front of the other.  I made sure Áine had a therapist, playdates with friends, activities that she loved but I didn’t have the time, energy, or money to do these things for myself.  Get a therapist, they say.  I can’t afford one, I say.  Find a support group, they say.  I don’t have childcare,  I say.  Go to the run club, they say.  Who’s going to mind ÁIne, I say.  Go on dates, they say.  How will I do that, I say.  

I have taken care of myself.  I try to get up every morning before Áine and Lilly, the dog.  I do some tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) or I meditate.  I visualize the success of my day.  I set mini-goals for myself as I do for my clients.  I read some.  I record what I am grateful for - usually included, my health, my beautiful home, sometimes, Lilly, my automatic coffeemaker, various friends or family members, and always, Áine, all day every day.

I am immensely grateful for my amazing peanut. She brings so much joy and peace into my life.  I couldn’t imagine her not being here every day.  Not waking up and having here with me.  Not hearing her sweet voice saying, “good morning, mommy” as she comes down the stairs.  Not having her to hug and tell her I love her a million times a day.  It’s not really that many times, but I do it every chance I get.  So, although being a 100% single parent is challenging, I am grateful that I am the 100% single parent in this situation.

No matter how grateful I am and how much I take care of myself, it will never be enough because I am a single mother with MS.  Many of you reading this know that and you also know that I had a stem cell transplant almost 6 years ago to stop the progression of MS.  It did.  It corrected many symptoms, but I still have it.  I still wake up each morning to battle the same monster.  Many mornings, I wake up feeling hungover even though I hadn’t had a drink the day before.  Other mornings, I wake up feeling normal and make it until about 10 or 11 before the beast tries to stop me.  The fatigue with MS is real.  Please don’t try to tell me you get it; that you are tired, too.  You can’t get it unless you have truly felt it ( there are those of you who have from one disease or another).    

It’s winter where I am.  It went from being in the 20s to being in the 50s in a 24-hour period.  50s and sunny!  HOORAH!!! No, not for me.  My body takes it out on me when the weather misbehaves.  When the weather decides to shock us with its fluctuations.  When it gives us a taste of what it’s like to feel something different.  When it gives us hope for better weather.  When it reminds us we are not there, yet.  Instead of enjoying the warmth and sun, I spent any free time I had in bed contemplating how sucky it was that I couldn’t appreciate what everyone else was.  That I ruminate over driving to my sister’s house for dinner because I felt too exhausted to get there and never

mind get home.  That I thought about canceling for about an hour before I got myself to jump out of bed for Áine.  How could I not get out of bed to take her somewhere she experiences joy because I let my disease win?  How could I not get out of bed to take her to a house with so much energy and love and keep her at home while I lie in bed?  

Now,  I am not saying our home is not full of love and joy.  Sometimes, it is a loud, gregarious love and joy and others, it is silent and lonely.  Being a single parent with MS means it is unpredictable what our love and joy will look like on any given day.  It is always there.  It is sometimes quiet.  Áine always brings it just by existing.  It’s a matter of how strong I am to fully appreciate and reciprocate it.  Do I have the strength to give her 5-10 minutes of a dance, a song, an audience?  The answer is sometimes no until her sweet little voice says, “Mommy, please, you’ll feel better if you dance.”  And so, I dance.  I let the joy in.  I forget that I have MS and that the weight of our lives rests on me.