LIfe in a Hurricane

Lately my life feels like it is in a hurricane - just blowing away and I have no control over anything.  I am a control person, I like to make lists, I like to plan and I like to know what is going on in my life.  If something is thrown at me I like to sit down and plan out "ok, what do I do now".  I'll even plan both directions if I don't know which direction my life is going to go.  In the last year things have happened that I have not been able to plan, things that I cannot control, that no matter what I want or no matter what I do the outcome is still beyond my control.  I am also not an emotional person, I tend to hold it in until I can't anymore, then allow myself a good cry, then move on.  And yet the past few days find me with tears in my eyes constantly. 

When we bring a child into the world, or even in our case of bringing them into our family at an older age, you think about all the things they will be able to do in their life.  You think about what they will be when they get older, wonder what kinds of talents they will have and what an amazing person they are and will be.  If you are like me with my kids and their problems, you think through the possiblity that there may be some problems along the way, knowing that we can work through it, and hopefully they will have learned enough to help them get through.  I know that children have their free agency, they will make their own choices no matter what their parents teach them or want them to do.  I know that you cannot force children to do things, and that when they make a mistake you cannot take it away.  You cannot make it better or fix it.  We may try, and there are things in their lives that we can fix or help them to fix.  The hard part is when they make a mistake that you cannot fix, that you cannot help them to fix, and you just have to sit back and watch them as they recieve the consequence of their actions.  It breaks your heart to see the mistakes as they unfold, knowing that these mistakes will affect your childs future.  That in some ways they have given up on some of the good things in life, that they can still have a good future, but that it will be hard.  We all make mistakes in our lives, and all of our children make mistakes.  Everyone does something that they look back on and wonder why in the world they did that.  Anytime a child makes a mistake that hurts them it hurts their parents, but I have come to know the hurt that comes from looking at your child and wondering what they are going to do now.  Knowing how the choices that he has made will affect everything in his future, knowing that the consequences of his actions will not be small and that they are comepletely out of my control.  I feel like my family has been violated in a way, that our mistakes (well, his mistakes) are out in the open for the world to see, and for the world to judge.  I feel the weight of my family, the weight of trying to help my other children to deal with all that has happened, both with Gilbert and now with one of my other children, the weight of helping them to understand and see the cost of making bad decisions in your life, the weight of dealing with this one on our own.  Thank goodness for family that stands by us and doesn't judge, that I know loves me and my children no matter what; as I am not so sure how the rest of the world will take this.  But I have come to grips with that, knowing that my children are my children forever, no matter what; and that I love each of my children and they are amazing, even when they make stupid mistakes. It doesn't matter what the world thinks, because I have family and friends beside me, and we can do this.

This morning I am ready to stand in the eye of the hurricane, ready to do what I can to help my family stabilize, to give us the strength to fight our way out of this one, and to stand once again on safe ground.