Friday, September 23, 2011

Why, God, WHY?


I know, I know....we aren't supposed to ask that question
but today I am asking it.
Stay with me. Fix some tea. This is going to take some time.

I will be all over the map but I will get back to the Why, God, WHY?

I went to the chiropractor today.
 I love my chiropractor.
I collect favorite people and he is now on my list. I always feel better when I leave. Except for today. According to doctorman, I have the wrong pillow and maybe I talked on the phone too much this week. Maybe. Either way....my neck was miserable. VERY cranky. My left shoulder was even crankier. He has this fancy little gun thingamajig and he shoots me with it. I kinda like it in an 'ouch, that really hurts but don't stop' kinda way. But today was another story.....I almost swore at him and had he been standing in front of me instead of behind me I might have punched him.
It hurt.
ALOT.
All of a sudden I started to sweat and had the urge to throw up. He was still shooting me and I was wondering where the garbage can was. Sometimes I marvel at how long it takes me to speak up for my discomfort. Finally, the urge was stronger than my deeply embedded need/desire to be polite. I told him I felt sick. He wanted me to stand up and stretch my neck and see if I felt better. He was standing in front of the door. I am not sure exactly what I said but he quickly moved and I hurried to the bathroom and then headed outside for some fresh air. It turns out that he
 stimulated my parasympathetic nervous system.
 I would not suggest this.
 It gave me a whole host of symptoms that I would prefer not to have. I am feeling better now but it was a pretty crappy afternoon. If that wasn't bad enough I had to hook up a new printer today. For those who don't know me well this is about the last thing I want to do. I hate manuals and detailed instructions. I am one of those people who loves the convenience of cars and computers and printers and cell phones but I really have no patience for trying to understand how these things work. I managed to get through it without incident because the pressure was on.
Now, remember...I said stay with me.....this is where it seems to get off track.... 
My 20 year old son signed with the Army in March.
It turned my world upside down.
UPSIDE DOWN.
 I was scared.
 The life I spent two decades trying to protect might be in harm's way....like in a war??? Too much for my tender mama heart. I just couldn't bear it but I had to. I had to wrap my mind around this new stage of parenting. The one where they actually grow up and leave you. The stage where you are the LAST person they want advice from. It is painful to go from superhero to nobody overnight.
Trust me.
So, for many months we have had to wrap our minds around our precious child leaving, not being with us on Christmas, people yelling in his face at boot camp, getting stationed and then maybe going into an unknown country with war and death and violence all around him.
Then............last Thursday he changed his mind.
Just like that.
 He signed off and decided to not go. I had actually started to warm to the idea of the discipline he would learn and the opportunities that could come his way. I was still scared but more accepting. I had started to see that this was the job we have been trying to do all along.
Raise little people to be big people.
To go out in the world and live their OWN life.
Not the one I dream for them or the one I think is better.
Are you starting to wonder what the printer has to do with this crazy story?
Leave it to me to go from chiropractor's to throw up to printers to the army and back to printers again.

Now that Joshua has decided to stay here he is faced with a future that he doesn't have a vision for. The bank has a vision though...like 'you need to make your truck payment'. So does the insurance company. He has to have a job, even just a stepping stone job. I am the resident resume' maker in our family and so far my words have scored jobs for 3 friends and one cute husband (mine). The resume' was easy enough but damn....I realized part way through I would have to get that new printer out of the box and set it up by myself. It had to be done and I had to do it.
 I am pleased to say that handsome boy rolled out of here in his truck freshly showered with resume' in hand. He came home with an interview for Monday morning. The bank will be pleased.
But me?
 I still feel scared for his future.
 My biggest joy for my children is that they would be happy. That a Tuesday morning would mean leaving for a job that they love and they would not dread Mondays and wait for Fridays like a child waits for the ice cream truck on a hot summer day.
NO, not my children.
 I want them to follow their dreams.
I want them to make money doing something they feel passionate about.
I don't want them to trade their life for a paycheck.
 Life is so precious and so fleeting.
 Even a long life is a short one.
 I want them to be happy and so I fear for my son.
I fear for him to get trapped.
Caught up with obligations and love and babies and have to do something he hates for a family he loves. This is where my husband finds himself at 43 and it is truly heartbreaking to be a witness to. Yes, we are young but still....43 is the middle part of life and we all know it.
Pretty soon there will be more yesterdays than tomorrows.
 It's just a fact.
 So as my heart was heavy with these thoughts, and my parasympathetic nervous system was trying to recover I took myself to the comfiest chair we have and put the laptop where it belongs...in my lap.
I found myself hopping from blog to blog and somehow I clicked myself all the way to here.
And this is the part where I look at my son sitting on the couch with an uncertain future and I say thankyou GOD that he has a future but
WHY did you take sweet Jack from his family?
WHY????????
He looks so much like my precious son did at that tender age of 12.
 Still a sparkle in his eye....
still a boy with only dreams of being a young man.
Just a few days ago he started 7th grade, pencils sharpened,
new clothes on his back and then just like that he was swept away in a flood.
Leaving his mom and his dad without a son
and his little sister without a big brother.
WHY??????
My heart is aching and suddenly every single worry that I have in this moment seems to fade away as I imagine this family that I do not know staring at an empty chair at their dinner table.

They will remain in my prayers.
Do you think you could keep them in yours too?
At least for awhile while they try to face their new normal.

1 comment:

  1. Oh my god, what a beautifully raw blog post. You just keep blowing me out of the water over and over again.

    ReplyDelete