"I don't want to grow up..."

"...because I might die." That's what the woman on TLC's What Not to Wear just said. And my spirit screamed at the TV screen, "or you could not grow up and still die. You could die, and not grow up at all." Of course, she has grown up (they just said she is 46 years old), and I'm not really thinking of her dying. That's not the point. The point is... I don't know.

Maybe the point is she made it to 46, and my baby boy didn't make it to 16. I think I may have to turn the channel.

I know. I know. I cannot avoid forever statements that make me want to scream, or cry, or statements that just hurt. But for now, I am doing my very best to do just that very thing. Especially this weekend. Sunday is the 23rd. Two months since I last saw him his body. And on Monday, local children go back to school. A friend included me on a mailing asking whether, if given the choice, I would want to send my child to public schools or homeschool. Um. I would prefer that he simply be alive, and here with me.

But I know, I know. I cannot forever avoid statements that make me deeply, deeply sad. And that's how Sekai felt. Like there was too much that he could not avoid. At least, that's what I think he felt. Sometimes. I think that's why he said he didn't want to grow up. He was worried about what would happen to him if I died. ("My mom is older than she looks", he would say to people who questioned whether I was his sister.) He was worried about having to get a job, about what job he could possibly secure. He was worried about having to move out at age 18. I told him over and over that I fought too long and too hard to get him back in my life, in my home, in my arms for us to even have a conversation about him moving out just yet. I told him he was welcome where I was, wherever I was, always. I told him if he decided to get married, we would figure out the best home for all of us, so they could have their space as a couple...but if he really wanted 13 children, we might have to reconsider the living arrangements. He laughed at that. Then his face fell. Somewhere along the way, he had heard that he would have to leave home at 18. Either "because that's what people do", or, more likely, because that's what happens to children who grow up in foster care. So he didn't want to grow up at all.

Out into the shadow

I returned to work yesterday. As in, during the day. On a week day. When people were there. Lots and lots of people. I tried to avoid people who knew, especially people who had been at the funeral or whom I'd been in regular communication with because maybe they would provide an unexpected touchstone and the bricks would fall out of my carefully constructed wall, and I would, you know, like break down crying in the hallway. I also tried to avoid people who did not know that the son I had loved for 13 of his 15 years had passed away. I mean, really. There is no way to explain this without crumbling a little, or perhaps a lot.

Which is sort of what happened when I was asked, "So, are you have a great summer?" The ground shook a little bit, but I was able to dig my toes through my flip flops and into the Berber carpet to steady myself as I responded something along the lines of, "Um, no, I'm having a horrible summer." In my head, I followed up that statement with something about it being the worst summer ever, and tried to position myself in a way that would allow me to catch the bricks and put them back without being obvious about it. When I pulled myself out of my head, I could see her looking at me with a quizzical expression. Had she seen me applying mortar? I had no words to offer her, but thankfully, someone else who was present interjected, "Her boy passed away." At least I think that's what she said. The floor started shaking again at the phrase, "her boy." I wanted to thank her for recognizing that he is my boy. I wanted to ask her if she understood the fullness of his being my boy, and not *just* a foster child that I had just met months ago when we were matched (again) for adoption. But I didn't. I'm not sure if she saw me crumbling or felt me crumbling, but she quickly redirected the conversation and led me to her office for the business at hand. Phwew. That was close!

But then as we were trying to schedule my work, I heard myself explaining that yeah, planning for mid-October might not work because I'm probably going to shut down for the beginning of October because Sekai's birthday is October 8, so maybe, uhm...and the tears welled up in my eyes. The floor was still, but I was shaking, bricks were falling, and I just knew the tears were next. "Stop!" I told myself. Out loud. She was much kinder to me than I was to myself in that moment, and brought it all to a close by saying quite simply, "so we'll schedule it for the end of October". Ok, yes, let's do that. The meeting came to a close, and I walked out quite happy with where things stood, thinking, hmm, maybe I won't go out of my way to avoid people who understand after all. And then I started sobbing in the stairway...but I pulled it together by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs.

Last night, I read these words on p. 95 of "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert: "But what if by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity?...You'll need to find another purpose...Virginia Woolf wrote, 'Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword.' On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where 'all is correct.' But on the other side of that sword...'all is confusion.'" Ms. Gilbert was writing about choosing not to have children, and though I have not read Ms. Woolf's work that Gilbert references, I imagine Woolf was also speaking of that choice. I made the choice to be a parent, though. I made the choice to have a family. This, this here, this standing in the shadow? This was not my choice.

Return Assured

My packet came yesterday. If and when the need should arise, I am a member of Return Assured, so that if I am more than 100 miles from my legal residency at the time of my passing, they will assure that my body is returned to Ft. Lincoln Cemetery so that I may wait in rest with my son. I didn't realize that it is based on your legal residence, but rather understood that they would assure my body's return to Ft. Lincoln. Period. Hmm. So, I guess I will have to figure that out. But the point is, just in case everyone doesn't already know, I am to be laid to rest beside my sweet boy, when the time comes.

I know. Nobody wants to have to think about that kind of thing. Like I didn't want to have to call DDA and let them know that Sekai could not update his DDA waiting list information, nor is it necessary to keep him on the list at this point. That sounds all legal and technical, but really what I said, in between pushing down tears, was that he passed away, and um, can you please stop sending him mail. The woman quickly transferred me to someone else.

Where there is no vision, the people perish

"Where there is no vision, the people perish..." (Proverbs 29:18, KJV)

I'm familiar with this scripture, having studied it in my church years ago during a time of major transition within our church. Today, though, a friend (and clearly a spiritual sister sent by the Lord at the right time) ended a conversation in which we were talking about my son and her grandmother and structural sin by stating, "and people are perishing". I guess I understood this scripture to mean that it was the responsibility of the elders/leaders/heads/supervisors/directors to have a vision, or else they might not survive, they might not make it the whole way. (Think Moses not getting to go the Promised Land.) Today, though, my friend's response caught me off guard and clarified for me that though those in a position of power have the responsibility to maintain a vision, the danger is that the ones who usually suffer are those who are the most dependent on those who are in a position of power, those who are most vulnerable.

And, as I learned in another conversation today, way too often power protects power (either itself, or other like entities). Who, then, is protecting the vulnerable, especially when those in positions of power who are charged with protecting the vulnerable decline to do so?

Please take a look at the new links that I posted in the links columns today from Children's Rights, a watchdog organization that advocates on behalf of abused and neglected children throughout the U.S.