SHARE SOME OF MY SUFFERING HAPPILY

 
Mother and Dad returned to the United States still determined to make a go of it with the house in Woodside. In 1959 my husband and I made the decision to move to California to try to make a better life for ourselves. Mother and Dad invited us to stay with them until we got settled, an idea that seemed quite practical at the time.

There were eight of us living together in Woodside, and then there was the ninth, the most difficult personality of all — the house itself. My husband and Mark and I were almost immediately swept up in the chaos that enveloped it, like Dorothy and Toto pulled into that spinning tornado. Everything electrical seemed possessed — the washing machine, dryer, garbage disposal, deep freeze, stove, furnace, shavers, even the baby's bottle warmer. Anything with a motor also got in on the fun — the lawn mower, pool vacuum, and water pumps. Then came the march of the bugs — ants, bees, yellow jackets, and oak moths — followed by the parade of animals, including gophers and snakes.

Complicating every crisis further was the clash of personalities among the eight of us, made worse by our strenuous circumstances. In addition, things weren't working out financially for my husband and me. We weren't certain whether we should even stay in California. I finally wrote to Baba, who cabled that we should stick it out until the end of November. That was three months away, and I thought I could just bear it.

In August more news of Baba reached us, this time through Mani's Family Letters, and it was good news indeed.

What is more wonderfully reminiscent of real "old times" is something we have not seen for several years, something we had resigned ourselves to never perhaps expecting to see: Baba walking back and forth to the mandali's unaided and unaccompanied. The sound of that sudden clap so dearly familiar and we run out to find Him walking over to our cottage, open umbrella in hand and with a not-so-noticeable limp. We are not quite used to all this and can still find ourselves joyously startled when He suddenly gets up and walks over by Himself to another room. This is not only contrary to our most optimistic expectations, but contrary to the emphatic opinions and advice of eminent doctors and specialists who had been concerned in the matter and knew the extent of the injury. One of them who has seen the transformation said, "It is exactly the condition that would have resulted from the operation we advised. It seems He has performed His own operation!"

During this period, my son, Mark, was trying out his walking legs for the first time, and I was toddling along with him, trying to learn the right steps of parenting and hoping I wouldn't stumble too badly. One day I took him to a park, where I learned a lesson I've always remembered. I was talking to another mother when Mark started toward a slide and began to climb the ladder. When I ran to fetch him, the other mother called out, "Where are you going?"

"To rescue him and get him down," I explained.

"Why?" she asked. "My son slid down at age one."

I looked at her both puzzled and frightened.

She explained, "Your job isn't to stop him from climbing. It's to stand underneath and catch him if he falls."

From that brief encounter in the park, my parenting philosophy took root. Let the children climb and let them do it alone. But be there to catch them if they fall.

While I worked to learn the keys to successful parenting, Mother and Dad continued their exertions to shape a life around the house in Woodside. Now financial troubles were added to their woes. Consulting jobs promised to my father unexpectedly fell through. He and Mother calculated their newly strained finances and concluded it was impossible to maintain their beloved dream home. Mother wrote to Baba, and that's when he told her to sell the house "as it has served its purpose."

Mother sold the house like lightning and arranged for Dad and her to move to an apartment in San Francisco. The dream was over, but so at last were the years of stress and sacrifice trying to realize it. Mani told us that when one of Mother's letters detailing some of these Woodside woes was read to Baba, he said, "It has to be, for lovers like her have to share some of my suffering happily."