The One Good-Bye...An Impossibility

There is a new collection of essays chronicling the complicated relationships between the mother and nanny. My relationship with my nanny, my son's Tia, is no less complicated. It is a strange sisterhood, there is no other word that applies, where we cohabit this delicate balance between employer and employee. And yet, this is one of the most intimate relationships I have in my life. No one else sees so clearly the messiness of two lives with divergent careers and the disappointments inherent in any relationship that spans so much time. There is nowhere to hide when you are feeling bruised, your eyes revealing the heartbreak of your life turning out unlike anything you had ever imagined.

Our Tia, a name we decided our son would use, has been working for us since he was 7 weeks old. We'd hired her when I was 8 months pregnant. And yes, like a nervous Nelly, otherwise known as first time mom, I hid inside my bedroom the first day she arrived making urgent calls to my husband that she wasn't qualified. He quite rationally told me she was going to stay despite my urgings for him to tell her this was all a mistake. I remember she wore perfume the first day, the flowery scent lingering on my child long after she had left caring for him to take care of her own daughter. I now realize why I had fixated on this perfume, as if it were the world's worst offense. I was rejecting the reality that this young woman was more capable, more qualified to care for my son than I was despite my many degrees and 'good breeding' that was a requirement of my upbringing. Yes, in truth there was no way I would have stayed sane without her. After getting beyond the perfume, we forged a bond fraught with all the social, class implications of such a relationship. I knew I wanted her to be at home, to feel a part of our family. There was no way that someone who would be caring for our child should feel as merely an employee. So, in my way, I made it more complicated by forcing us to forget the normal delineations and to create new boundaries. Pretty soon we'd spend the late afternoons sharing a snack and talking about our lives. Or rather, mostly she talked and I listened. And a friendship was borne and a sisterhood--I am the older sister, obviously.

Both of us well up with tears when we mention the inevitable: our good-bye. It is the relationship that defines this last epoch of my time in LA. She has been a constant these last five years of me redefining who I am now that I have this appendage known as the child. We now share much more than our love for my son, who is as much her child as mine. I know my son will be devastated by this loss. But my grief is no less significant, just different. And grief is what I experience when I think about the last day, fast approaching, when she leaves us for good. It is a moment that takes my breath away. I try to prepare for it, but I know it is implausible to me that I will not hear her key in our front door again.

In all honesty, she took care of my son as much as taking care of me. I can recall that day when I was sick with the flu, she took it upon herself to get me a special El Salvadorean soup to cure all ailments. These gestures of thoughtfulness went beyond merely an employee taking care of the employer. They were the acts of affection and caring. I know I will not go out to replicate this bond with someone new. I can't imagine it. It feels adulterous in some odd way. And as we say 'farewell' to this part of our relationship, I know she will always stay in our lives, the way extended families do even if separated by many miles.