Tuesday, November 7, 2017

What I'm Going to Say

Do you think babies/kids can sense things? Are more attuned than the average person? J has been out of whack all day today and I’ve been complaining and appeasing and disciplining and hugging and she is just- an emotional mess.


It’s 8:10 pm and I’ve just sat down and my heart is racing and I honest to goodness have small tremors in my hands and my stomach is twisted up into knots and I’m already crying. And, duh, I’m always the last to know, but I’ve been at a 10 all day- just busy, frantic, making myself crazy trying to fill my time and I finally figured it out- I’m avoiding. My poor girl had a bad day because I am an emotional mess.


I keep trying to picture what it’s going to be- to stand across this young man who has become like my own. Some strange mix of brother, son, friend and certainly family. What will I say? What can I possibly say?


Nothing I can say will make it okay that he’s been locked up.
There’s no certainty about his future, so I can’t make any promises.
I know that if I say I’m sorry he will say that it’s okay. And then I’ll say no, it’s not. We’ve done that song and dance a time or two before.


I know that we didn’t realize how much he’d knit himself into the fabric of our lives until he was gone, absent, snatched up.
We hadn’t realized that we often see him several times a week. That he is the person most often and most regularly invited into our daily life and our family time.
We hadn’t reflected often enough about how beautiful and heart-warming it is in this place so far from our other extended family to watch someone else spoil and love and dote on our daughter with as much love for her as we have.
We hadn’t noticed that slowly over the last year and a half all pretense had faded- we just got to be ourselves and he got to be himself- however ugly or beautiful we all were in that moment.


We just hadn’t realized. And now there are things that we do and say and routines in place that all came to be because of him and I’m so sad. Sad about all the memories we’re not going to get to make.Sad about all the things he’s going to miss out on here. Immensely sad about all the things he’s going to miss out on in his own life. Immensely sad about the realities he is currently facing.

Am I to dream up the beauty of freedom and justice- hugs and laughter and our families dining together, sharing old stories? I can spin a story we can all hold on to for hope.

But, is it right to?


Do I say, oh so very tentatively, that prospects are grim- the wait will be long and hard, and we may discover we've waited away the better years of your life in vain?



I just don’t know what I’m going to say.


In search of strength,

Alissa

1 comment:

  1. Oh Alissa. No words. I’m so sorry. I pray your presence will be a gift and that the right words will come.

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