Goodbye Anisa (for now)

We said goodbye to Anisa today. Sort of. She is coming tomorrow morning to pick up one of the girls while I take the other one on an errand. And then we have tentative plans for next week. After that, she leaves the country for three years.

I wrote in an earlier post that Anisa had become "like a sister" to me. It has since come to my attention that one of the terrible society women in The Nanny Diaries refers to her daycare provider cum indentured servant in exactly the same way. I could exhaust you with a torrent of words about how my relationship with Anisa is "real," but you're just going to have to take my word for it. Yes, there are gaps between us, those human gaps, plus the inevitable gaps between employer and employee. Around, above, and between those gaps, however, something grew, something bigger than what we had as teacher and student.

Anisa, John, and I ran into each other in Starbuck's one day, maybe three weeks before we went to Ethiopia to bring the girls back. She was excited for us, and told us about her extensive babysitting experience. "Give me a call if you need me," she said. Great. In the meantime, we anguished about the daily "hurry up and wait" news we were getting from our liaison about the girls. I was so afraid to make plans and thereby jinx the whole thing that I made no daycare arrangements before we left. When we came back, we arranged an interview with an Eritrean woman who was interested in doing some babysitting. She was very nice, but it didn't feel right. Impulsively, instinctively, I called Anisa. Within minutes, we had a babysitting schedule that would see us through the rest of the semester.

She was a wonder. Among her other qualifications was her role in nearly raising teenage twins in her own family. "Remember, you're the one who is new to this, not me," she would assure me. At the same time, she always respected my role as the mother, even as she grew close to the girls, and spend substantial time caring for them. "How are the girls sure that Anisa is not their parent?" John and I would joke. She knew more than we did; I lapped up all of her advice. I had a class to teach that semester, and I couldn't have concentrated on anything at all if I hadn't been sure that the girls were in safe and loving hands at home. For months, Anisa was responsible for whatever peace of mind I experienced.

She was heroic. She weathered all manner of snotty noses and vomiting spells. She listened, with apparent interest, to my detailed theories about their bowel movements. She did laundry and mopped the floor. She consulted with her mother when I wrung my hands over the girls' nap schedule. I would come home to a sparkling kitchen and a tidy play area. She shared her favorite CDs. Once, during a veritable blizzard, she trudged to our house on foot. Mostly, however, she was, heroically, just plain excellent company, for the girls, and for me. To my mind, all of this falls under the category of "miracle."

And now, this miraculous young woman is leaving us. She's young, with a whole litany of adventures waiting to claim her. I am thrilled about her plans for the next few years. Thrilled and wistful, too. Such adventures are part of my past life, not my present one.

In the present, I wonder what will happen on the morning when my girls discover that their Anisa won't be coming today. I am almost more worried that they won't be sad than I am that they will. I want them to miss her; she has loved them so well. And sadness is part of life, sometimes an exquisitely important part. At the same time, of course, I want to shield my daughters from this and every other pain that life will put in front of them.

I expect I will be living with this contradiction for a long time.