On Separation Anxiety and the Tuesday Morning Drop-off

The shrieking starts.

“See you later, love you!”

I’m prying a two-year-old off her mother, and she clambers over my shoulder, reaching a desperate little hand to the door. The parent, apologetic yet still focused on getting out said door, knows her daughter will be happily playing in two minutes or less. I know it, too.

I saw it a thousand times, as a preschool teacher.

Separation anxiety.

Separation anxiety is based on an incongruent belief of time. Well, that’s what they told me in child development class (or was it a blog post on Facebook?). Toddlers experience the fullness of emotion in any given moment. When I say “your cookie is for later”, there’s no such thing as later. It’s the fullness of grief—right now.

It makes no sense. You try and explain: you can have it, but after nap time. You try the same logic at the classroom door: Mummy’s coming back soon. You sheepishly know you’re pulling an Aslan, calling all times soon, because you’re trying everything. But you’re still left with a writhing, tearful toddler. And now you’re about to unravel.

But if you take a deep breath?

It’s mesmerizing.

I’ve pried the two-year-old off her mother, and now she’s screaming in my right ear. I carry her to the classroom couch. Some mornings it’s the paint project that calms her down. Other times, it’s the cat sticker on my water bottle. But this morning I pull out my last (and sometimes only) resort:

“I miss my mummy too.”

She’s still squirming in my arms—but now she’s paying attention. I continue to explain that my mummy and daddy live far away from New Zealand, and I have to go on an airplane to see them.

Most days I get by explaining it without getting choked up. Most days I love being a dual citizen, born and raised in Hawaiʻi, teaching in New Zealand. But not now.

Now, tears pool and I hold her close.

It’s been five years since those classroom days, and I’ve faced the fact I need to grieve my losses. Houses, countries, relationships, that one pottery mug that didn’t fit in my suitcase. I started my twenties as an annoying optimist, and ended them as an amateur writer on grief.

But there was one kind of loss I didn’t like facing. Uncertain loss. The seasons in limbo, that hadn’t quite ended. The people I’d see again, but didn’t know when. Why grieve those?

I’d seen separation anxiety a thousand times before I finally let that still, small voice ask me:

“You do realize the temporary separations need to be grieved, right?”

Oh, I knew telling kids with severe separation anxiety “Mummy’s coming back soon” never worked. Sitting with them, holding them, and giving joy in the meantime did (that cat sticker still works wonders).

But I had to learn to give myself the same grace.

Last month, I crumpled over my mom’s kitchen counter, the marble cool as hot tears pooled. I’m on sabbatical at home in Hawaiʻi, not knowing when I can get back to my media job in London. It’s only been two years in England. But it’s been home long enough to trigger my own personal brand of shrieking.

Half an hour later, I sunk into my mom’s couch, her hand in mine. The tissues were soaked, and I rested in the calm after the sobs. I’d been okay for weeks. But it turns out that sabbatical and clawing your way out of debt and going to regular counseling for the first time in your life—well, it can turn you into a toddler again.

Sometimes? That’s exactly what you need.

Don’t forget, the right response to temporary loss is still grief.

But it’s not just the right response—take a deep breath, and look again.

Tears are mesmerizing.

Photos by Annie Spratt