Fast and Furious

I used to be so organized.  This isn't my first blog.  I used to write daily and post a couple of times a week--writing that felt strong to me and carried my voice to the page.  I am trying my best to find that rhythm again, but with no luck.  Lately it has been as though life is rushing at me going something like 80 miles an hour with no brakes.  Crazy pieces of road debris and madness are slamming into me causing a sadness and confusion that I can't seem to begin to describe even though I am desperate to.

My older kids lost a good friend today.  In some house less than a mile from where I sit typing in the quiet still of the evening there are two parents going through a kind of hell I cannot even imagine.  While I was hugging my boy in the kitchen, and wishing my eighteen year old daughter still lived at home, they are struggling with the fact that they will never get to see their sixteen year old son grow up.  My struggles are nothing compared to theirs.  I cannot even imagine the starkness of a world that was missing one of my children, even less can I imagine losing an only child.

Under the best of circumstances parenting teenagers is hard.  The sharp blast of their music grates against the edges of my raw nerves.  I find myself second guessing every small decisions I make in regard to new freedoms, independence, choices made on their own and consequences tended to.  I am completely uncertain how I am going to handle contrast between meeting the needs of a newborn next spring and at the same time working my way along the process of letting go of my older children as they grown into adults.  This baby isn't even here yet and already I feel their different needs wrenching me in a dozen directions at once.  The strange thing is that even the painful uncertainty feels like a gift to me lately and especially today.  I am well aware of how incredibly lucky I am to be moving towards this sweet final refrain of baby days and childhood.  The experiences of raising my older three children have taught me well the value and flying speed of time.  I am relieved that as my first baby leaves to test her wings, I have the security of knowing that I will likely have at least another eighteen years before my nest is completely empty.  It is as though I have won some small victory over the passing of time, temporary though it may be.

I am undeniably proud of my son today.  He visited his friend in the hospital shortly before he passed this afternoon.  He spent the afternoon with their friends at the park, crying and reminiscing and grieving together.  Then on his way home he stopped at his friend's house and with more courage and maturity than I could have imagined, he visited with and tried to comfort Hank's parents.  At fourteen I have raised a a boy, a young man really, who is kind and open-hearted and understands about reaching out to others even when he has his own pain and sadness.  I have seen those same traits in my daughter as well.  I have no way of knowing if it is something that I taught or modeled, but I am so terribly grateful and proud to see it and I hope with all of my heart that I can replicate those lessons as I raise my younger two children.  I am  lucky in a million different ways tonight and on top of that I am lucky enough to know it.

Tonight I will go to sleep wishing some delicate and lasting peace to Hank's parents, in whatever possible way they can find it.  There are no words for the  depth of my sorrow for their loss.  The best way I can think of to honor their son is simply to hold my own children a little tighter for as long as they will let me.

My Boy--More grown than I want to admit.