This week marks the year, an anniversary if you will. I have pictures from last December. And so many regrets. Leaving me with an ensuing dizziness, making colors and all sorts of sense blur.
And I am terrified, for lack of a better word, that in all irony it will happen again.
It is dangerous to love, it turns out. To unlock those hefty latches on your heart and feel such a thing again. The kind of feel, which burns. It aches like an overused muscle. When all you want is to be part of their whole, and they a part of yours. To heal their hurt. To be what they need -- because they are what you need. And you want them to see it. You don't want it to hurt, but you want them to know. You want to be treasured, as you treasure.
~
Not too many days after a horrific tragedy occurs in New England, my mind is reeling. I was not with my Judah when I found out the news. Details unfolded as I got ready for my commencement, and I found myself just wanting to hold him. The greatest moment fear of a parent being, I think, when you realize you cannot protect this small person from the world.
In an interview, one of the Sandy Hook teachers tells us that while hiding her entire class of students in a bathroom, she told them that "bad guys were out there. And we have to wait until the good guys come."
My heart breaks at what a young age these children have had to learn what a bad man looks like. How young they were to have had to stand in the face of pure evilness.
For my mother-heart to be broken is something I wish I could have postponed. It happened so early on, weeks and weeks ago. And our pain, mine and Judah's, can never compare. But the desire of a mother to protect her child is the same. The desire to prevent hurt is so strong, instinctual. But here we are again, worrying the pain like a loose tooth. We always wish we could delay the hurt.
~
And so night falls. This time of year it comes quickly, seeping and fluid, without much hope for morning. Winter brings the kind of nights you swear you'll never survive. Gloom and noise and frigidity. You're not sure you can make one more bottle. Or that you have the energy to take him back to his crib. The heat kicks the door open again, and the fear that kicks in your heart means sleep won't come for a while.
You find yourself waking, even when he does not, waiting to hear the familiar sound of the door being opened. It catches, my front door. And from the back of the apartment you can hear it open and then shut. You hear him meander heavily, finding his way back to us.
How is it, I wonder, he always finds his way back?
I am terrified, those nights the door doesn't open. The things my heart needs are too many and our lives are too complicated and I am certain, in the most worried part of myself, that this makes me unloveable. I am certain, in all my fear, I will keep getting left. I want to delay this hurt too.
But he finds his way back. Like the greatest of promises. And the instant his giant shadow darkens the door, something is righted in our world. A peace falls over our home, and it scares me the way it reminds me.
Reminds me of cold nights on Long Avenue. Usually Mondays and Tamera is cooking dinner and the windows in the kitchen and the water glasses are sweating. We'd hear his car pull up -- the old '69 Chevelle. And he would sit in the car for half an hour sometimes, talking on his phone. When he came in, he would put his keys, loose change, and half eaten roll of Certs on the short dresser in the back room. Then he would play the piano.
That kind of peace.
A coming home, a family kind of peace.
~
I am learning we have to meet people where they are. To truly, truly love someone you have to help them be the best version of themselves and love them in the way they need. Sometimes "the way they need" is for you to understand how to accept their love. And, God Almighty, if this isn't the hardest thing I've ever had to learn how to do.
Already this story is so different than I imagined. Six months ago, had I been asked how I wished things would "work out", or resolve, I would not have painted this picture. Not exactly. Even ten weeks ago, when the story took a sharp right turn, I could not have told you the sweetness of this. Perhaps the beauty of being chosen is greater.
Fear grips and I grit my teeth against unwanted tears. And I remind myself, who I really am is not unreasonable. I remind myself not to mess up something sweet. To be gracious and merciful and to accept grace and mercy so I can become the kind of woman worthy of love. My son's love, his love.
I am a mother now. This revelation still baffles me on a daily basis. Desperately I want to raise my son to be strong and gracious and kind. I don't know how else to do this other than to show him how. To show him how and also allow people so strategically in our lives, who both need strength and kindness and grace, and are the manifestation of it.
I find these attributes hard to come by when I am lonely. Loneliness is a bear all itself, hurting my heart and making me question. Question everything I should be certain of. Making me defensive and completely unlike myself. But on those dark nights, I can't talk myself out of it. And I beg sleep to come, if peace will not. Reminding myself I can try harder tomorrow. To love harder -- be sweeter and less weak.
This, then, is what I carry into this next chapter. Perhaps, what comes next will come like morningtime. I can only pray. This is not a story about delaying hurt, of protecting ourselves from any and all danger. But a story, as it has always been, about risk and trust and hope.
There's just a lot of weight to it. This story.
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