I have been sick to my stomach for 5 days now. On Friday I opened up my yahoo see what random news there was to read during lunch and was slammed in the face with the words that changed us all. Images that we cannot erase from our minds no matter how hard we might scrub. Cries and screams that we didn’t hear out loud, but sound repeatedly in our ears clearly.
I close my eyes and pray to rewind time. I wish I could have foresight to go back to 8am on Friday morning and stop it somehow. Send a snowstorm to keep school closed, learn how to remove a battery to disable a car, will a police officer to have a random traffic stop so as to detain an evil doer from completing his journey.
But I am not magic. I don’t have those powers. I am unable to rewrite history. I am as human as we all are and I am grieving. I am grieving for those that I have never met in life but look forward to having welcome me one day to a paradise they will be getting ready for me to join.
To know me socially, you would probably not see me as a deeply spiritual person. I am private about my faith; I don’t choose to define my heart publicly. To know me personally, you’d understand that it is there, hidden and private, but strong and honest. My convictions are sometimes muddled, confused and angry. I do not profess to the notion of “God’s Will” when things that are so atrocious, so vile and so inhumane occur. The God I pray to does not sacrifice to prove a point. Some events defy reason, explanation.
There is a blog going around from a woman who has a child that frightens her to her very core. She writes that she is the Mother of XXX. She writes that she could be any of the sociopath’s mothers as her child could be capable of that same thing. I can empathize with this woman’s struggle as she didn’t “ask” for this to be her life. She fights to protect her other children from the emotional pendulum of her troubled child, while being torn as to how to care and nurture the all. But as real as this problem is for her, it isn’t my focus right now.
My focus is that of a Mother of a 5 year boy. A boy who still has his milk teeth, some loose, some firmly still rooted for months to come. A boy who still sleeps with his stuffed animals and smells sweetly after getting out of his bubble bath. A boy who is only about 3 years or so out of diapers. A boy whose pants still carry the “T” label attached to the numerical size and still have adjustable waists.
My boy, who grew up to be a big Kindergartener this year. Who takes a big huge school bus each afternoon to his afterschool program and who comes home each day with his little tiny backpack stuffed with paper airplanes, homemade books and weird magic marker colored creations.
My child. My little boy. Who believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. My child who has learned all of the words to “Grand Old Flag” and somehow knows the “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” song (how does this get passed down year to year I wonder?). My son, who already knows how to read and could probably take apart a computer and troubleshoot why it wasn’t working. My brilliant, sunny, happy and sweet 5 year old child.
I watched him walk away from me this morning when I dropped him off at school. My faith assures me that he will come home to me tonight, full of stories of what he did during his day and what new thing he wants for Christmas. My world will be complete, it will continue, it will go on unscathed (at least on the surface)
I say this because underneath it all, I will find myself driven to my knees in gratitude that my child is coming home to me. That I have more time to watch him grow. I have more time to put those teeth under his pillow as he loses them. I get to watch him blow out that big number 6 on his cake in two weeks. I get another Christmas, another birthday, Easter and beyond. I am fortunate.
And as a Mother, my heart aches and yearns for those who were robbed of this future I can look forward to with my child. I grieve for all that they have lost. I cry, I scream, I want to understand why. I don’t accept the answers given to me. I become a 5 year old myself; “It’s NOT fair”.
It’s not fair. It is NOT ok. It is not ok to feel that emptiness where once it was filled with laughter, trio blocks, leap frogs and kraft mac and cheese. It is not fair to have to say goodbye yet. It is not ok to go through this world missing a huge part of yourself for a reason such as this.
I am the Mother of a 5 year old boy, and it is in my child that 20 beautiful lights will continue to shine.
