Losing A Child to Adolescents

Emilie wanted to go to a haunted house yesterday. I snuck in a quick mountain bike ride then we took off on an hour drive to Westland, the only place anywhere near our house that I could find a haunted house open on a Monday. In the car ride I noticed how Em is changing. I thought about how the music we listen to in the car had evolved from The Wiggles and Kids Bop CDs, to 910 AM Disney Radio, to 96.3 FM pop rock, and now we were listening to the band Cake on 89X, an alternative rock station. I couldn’t tell if she liked it or just tolerated it, either way it showed a lever of maturity I hadn’t seen before. Our conversation has evolved too, from games we played to keep ourselves occupied, to hearing about her day, in great detail, to now where we were talking about why some people are the way they are. She told me about her plans for the weekend, none of which included me. We were suppose to go trick-or-treating together in West Dearborn, the neighborhood I grew up in, since now we live in a white trash neighborhood with houses far apart on a dirt road. I was looking forward to trick-or-treating in the neighborhood I trick or treated in as a kid. I would peek into the door of the house I grew up in, a huge brick house, complete with a huge garage and a library, a house much nicer than I will ever live in again. I would see if there were still ghosts there. It is a humbling thing not to reach the same level of fame and fortune as your parents. Anyway, since Emilie and Allie would be at parties and sleepovers all weekend, I am free to do a two day cyclocross race in Ann Arbor this weekend.

We got to the haunted house and Emilie was on the fence whether or not to go in. She really wanted to experience it but she was scared. She decided to go in but put her hoody on backwards so she could cover her face with the hood. It made me happy to see there was still a kid in there. She looked cute, face buried in her hood, her hair recently cut by her girlfriend during a sleepover last weekend. It is only a matter of time until she pierces her own ears. When I was her age I gave myself a prison tattoo with a sewing needle and ink from a broken BIC pen; the name of a girl I met earlier in the day, just because.

It was late when we drove home. Em asked if she could sleep in the back of my Chevy Tracker. I made a bed out of coats and she fell asleep. When we got home I carried her, like a baby, into the house. She weighs 80 lbs. I may never be able to do that again.