Dust trails, crocodile tears and houses with wheels….

“Most TCKs go through more grief experiences by the time they are 20 than monocultural individuals do in a lifetime.” -David Pollock

My children are TCK’s. Third Culture Kids are children who grow up in a culture other then their own. We knew when we came that we were bringing our children in to this world of depth of experiences and deep loss but parenting through it has been humbling, and challenging all in one breath.

My husband often reminds me that the amazing experiences our children are having come at great cost an this was an evening we were reminded of this cost.

Tonight we had popcorn for dinner and frozen coke and watched a movie we purchased on Amazon Prime as a family, sounds pretty irresponsible as parents to serve such things and allow such a splurge of movie time at the end of a weekend where the tv had been on more then normal already but we really felt it was the best option, we felt the kids “needed” it. Several things have heightened my awareness over the past few months that we are indeed parenting different children then when we first left our passport country – different in their identity not merely their ages.

The first happened a week ago at a church service we attended here. I went with the children to the Sunday school (all the kids of various ages in one room). My kids were the only children there from our passport country, but as is true in this N. African country the class was littered with children from Germany, Somalia, South Sudan, Chad, Ghana and Australia. The teacher began class by asking my children to say their name and their “home country”. My girls boldly spoke up and answered without hesitation their names and then said, “we are from South Sudan”. The teacher was a bit taken back by these fair skinned children boldly proclaiming their home country as a place where their skin clearly told a different story. He said, “I know that is where you lived but where is your “home” country. The girls without hesitation proclaimed, “Melut”. This didn’t come as a huge surprise to me as I had done some draw therapy with them earlier and knew they considered their primary home there in our pre-fab house along the Nile but it again brought to light the depth of their losses, and griefs. Jon and I said goodbye for a season to our home, but we didn’t say goodbye to our “home country” as our children had, our sense of “home” was still rooted in our passport country, theirs was not.

Their play reflects these losses, for a season all their lego houses had wheels, so they could take them with them, then they realized some sense of stability that enabled the wheels to come off and the houses to be grounded on the parque floor. But with this move once again the wheels have become a high commodity –  each child is fighting to have enough wheels to mobilize their home, to minimize the griefs of goodbyes. At one point my oldest exclaimed, “I have to have those wheels Flower-Girl or I might have to leave my house behind and it would make me soo sad!”. There will be a time when they have processed well and those wheels won’t be needed but right now they need to build houses with wheels, to control and minimize losses and explore their emotions as they play.

In the past three months the children have lived in three different countries and said goodbye to countless friends. We are in a new country, with no new friends “yet” and are slowly uncovering depths to the grieving they have undergone over the past year. They are grieving their friendships, security, possessions, the tree, the old pipe they played with, rain and mud, henna, coffee and Sudanese okra, charcoal cookers and grass forts, they are grieving the loss of their home. And with waves of grief upon waves of grief they are tired. It suddenly becomes simple to see why Dr. Pollock writes about children experiencing such grief in the ex-patriate life. J– and I have tried to provide space to grieve and process with them, to uncover the layers of hidden grief and creating space for great laughter and fun but then tonight happens.

We were saying goodbye to teammates. They arrived here on the same plane as us and stayed 2 weeks to do a vision trip, encourage us as we settled and sight see. We didn’t see them much while they were here, but when we did it was often after the kids were in bed. We love them though and today after lunch out and a few games we said goodbye. After hugs and well wishes suddenly I realized that one of my girls was gone. I called and called and told her to come out and say goodbye and she emerged from her room with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I am just so sad she shouted, I don’t want to say goodbye anymore”. We all stood there by the door, for a moment no one spoke a word. I told her I knew she was sad, but they had to go, did she want to say a good goodbye? Her head shook back and forth with passion and tears left dust trails down her cheeks and then I told her she could go back to her room. She closed the door and sobs emanated from the hallway. We all stood there all a bit sad at saying goodbye and then processing the experience of watching the emotion bubbling over her sweet face. Our friends graciously apologized for the grief and left and my husband went back and sat on the bed with her. He is so good with grief. We often say it is the gift of going through it in such force after our firstborn daughter died.

He let it be, he didn’t try and erase, eliminate or explain away the grief they were sad together. He could have felt uncomfortable and used trivialities to make himself feel better that may have been true such as, “we’ll see them again” or, “we didn’t see them too much here anyway you won’t even realize they’re gone” or “you still have other aunties and uncles here”. He made the better choice though and just sat with her. He held her. They cried together. Then we turned on a movie, popped popcorn drank coke for dinner and tucked each of our four treasures into bed.

Parenting in this season for us has been all about focus, focus on making sure we give our children time to process and heal, focusing on making sure that the children that need it have wheels for their lego houses. Crocodile tears assure us that we are doing the right thing, that this is a season for grieving. We lean into the grief, as a gift from God as a unit of six knowing that God will meet us there, but it is so hard to see such deep griefs etched in the face of your elementary school TCK, even if you know God will meet her there. Each dust trail left from the crocodile tears breaks our heart with hers and we fight to remind ourselves that there is nowhere that God’s comfort cannot find her.

To be resilient we must do the hard work of grieving and this is the season for doing just that, but pray for our TCK’s that they will grieve well. So often it is easy to focus on the blessing of being a TCK, the pyramids being your playground, swimming in the Nile, fishing, tree climbing, knowing a bigger view of the world then you would have otherwise known, henna parties and grasshopper catching, making do with little, extra time with family, but the blessings come with a cost which cannot be avoided, goodbyes, goodbyes, and goodbyes leave dust trails of tears on faces as they mature.

My kids aren’t the only TCK’s you know, you may know some who have matured into adults, who are transitioning into life in a passport country or who are struggling or thriving in the late high school or college years. They have stories of dust trail tears, of goodbye that have shaped their experiences and made them who we they are. Pray for our TCK’s that they will lean into grief and find God there. Pray for the TCK’s that you know that the treasure at the end of each grief and loss will be greater knowledge of the one who saves, and this will shape each of them into men and women who know and reflect Christ and the joy that relationship with him brings.

Pray for TCK parents that we will be rocks of support who can help our children lean into the grief and find God waiting to comfort them there – that we will all know more of God for dust trails, crocodile tears and houses we wish we could put all our friends and experiences into and wheel with us through life but instead we leave behind.