Here’s one thing that’s weird about being the only parent at home.

Deciding an emergency contact person.

It’s kind of suddenly an arbitrary decision, when before it was a brainless decision.

The form has a blank for “emergency contact” – insert spouse’s name and information.

No thought required.

But now.

Now, it’s like — hmm, maybe today I’ll pick Friend A, maybe tomorrow Friend B.  Which friend is more likely to answer her phone if a stranger calls?  Which friend could leave what she’s doing to help me out in an emergency?

And of course I know that if any of these friends received That Phone Call, they would drop what they were doing and come to my aid.  Just like I would do the absolute same for them.  Of course.

That isn’t even the actual point of the weirdness of it all, you know?

The fact is –

I don’t have a person.

Not for the emergency contact.  Not for the back up late night trip to the drug store to get medicine for a sick kid or potato chips for a midnight movie.

(Yes.  I am over the top grateful for the actual people I do have in my life,  I know I have people.  But having people is different than having a person.  Can you feel the subtle difference?)

You know how – when you left home as a teenager or as a college student – your mom always said something like “Call me when you get there.”  “Text me to let me know you arrived safely.”  (Well.  My mom never said that because we didn’t have cell phones when I was leaving home.  We had quarters that we placed in our shoes in case we needed to use a payphone to call home.  A payphone, people.  Like – a telephone in a glass rectangle that you placed coins in AFTER you exited your car and stepped into the booth, alone and highly visible.  It was bizarre, alright.)

It didn’t matter if you were driving to Texas or driving across the neighborhood, if it was a late night – your mom or your dad was going to say something like that.

“Let me know you get there safely.”

Because they want to know.

Your mom’s going to worry if you forget and three hours pass and you never called her and told her you were safe.

That.

That is what I miss.

(And I realize that my situation is neither unique nor life threatening.  I know there are single parents and single people all over the world.  People whose mothers and fathers have passed away and people who grew up with crummy parents who were never on the other end of the phone checking in.  I know this is not uncommon.  The fact that this is a commonplace problem, however, does not lessen its sting in my own life.)

No one at the other end of the phone waiting for that text message, that phone call, to say – “Yep, we’re exhausted.  The dog puked on the way home and it seems like maybe the youngest got food poisoning from hot dogs in the last state, but here we are – in our beds, at our own house – and we want you to know because you want to know and now we all feel safe and loved and all of that.  We are home.”

Nope.

Now I just drive home.

I pull in.  I unload the groceries.  I unpack the suitcases.  I tuck the kids back into their own beds.  Ta-da — we made it safely home.

The end.

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