Courage When the Wolves Howl
When I returned in January 2020 from my usual week vacation after Christmas, I met with my Staff Parish Relations Committee chair and commented on how tired I still felt. She immediately discerned that one week had not been a long enough break and encouraged me to take more time off. My husband and I checked calendars and decided to take our family to Great Wolf Lodge Poconos over Presidents’ Day weekend in February when our two children had a four-day weekend off school. I wrote the following reflection during that trip:
I’m sitting facing the wave pool, among four long rows of chairs almost no one is sitting in. My children (ages 5 and 7) are in the wave pool, where the water is calm for two minutes followed by two minutes of waves. That cycle of calm and storm is predictable, you know when one will end and the other begin. The wolves howl before the waves start. You have advance notice.
In life, sometimes you have advance notice of the storm. There are warning signs, if you pay attention to them. It’s like many children’s temper tantrums, where if you know the child well and are paying attention, then you can recognize the signs and you know their triggers so sometimes you can head off a storm. It’s like the howling of the wolves, you know the waves are about to start. Other times, though, you have no control over the triggers and you just have to weather the storm.
This year, this time, my children are embracing the waves. They don’t need an adult with them. They’re jumping into the waves. They’re going underwater on purpose. (This is a big deal for my youngest who never graduated from his Level 1 swim class because he wouldn’t put his head underwater.) My children have been given the tools to succeed – not just bathing suit and goggles, but confidence in the water, independence, and the knowledge that they can do the wave pool by themselves.
The wave pool goes to five feet deep, but my youngest doesn’t go past where he can touch. My oldest goes a little further than where she can touch, swimming underwater, but not too much past. Now my oldest has walked over to what looks like a hot tub – and my youngest is swimming underwater! Then, he hears the wolves howl, stops what he’s doing, adjusts his goggles, and walks toward the waves.