Mom Moment - Things I Never Considered

You know, I sit here while he is sleeping - watching him while he dreams his kid dreams - while the end of the movie Forest Gump plays. I can remember when it first came out and the way it would give me mixed emotions of his character: happiness, wonder, sadness. Looking at this man's accomplishments while he simply goes with the flow but is confident and decisive. I haven't seen it in years and yet the part that touched me the most was at the end. Not exactly the part where his mother is sick and she dies, but the part where Jenny get sick and she dies. The moments before where she introduced Forest to his son, where he acknowledged that his son was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, the part where she tells him that she is sick and he comforts her and promises to take care of them both. The overall fact that he was willing and able to be there for them both and that Jenny was able to go to him, even after all of the bad and wrongs she had done to him, and still have his support. And most of all - that she was able to give her son a provider and a protector before she died.

It's like, you try not to think about too much of everything to not get depressed or stressed or sad, but then there's the reality of life and the reality about death. I don't think that I'm afraid to die. I'm at peace with the notion of the circle of life and appreciate everyday the fact that I get to enjoy living, and most especially - being able to be with my little guy. Just the concentration of working to provide for us, making time to go to diners or the movies, planning camps and vacations is all so much work on top of actually doing it that it seems that that should be all. That is should be the clause of life - you work hard to live life to enjoy it while you are living. Yet in still, there's so much more. What about the OTHER major points of life - the parts that he as a little person so desperately wants - a dog, a brother, a sister, a father. So valid. So important, yet so easy to sweep under the imaginary rug as nonexistent options. Wishes that are not far fetched and out of reach, although it seems like something that we might have to accept will not be in this life time. But why not? All of these very things I want myself but know we can never have with just the two of us. And while we wish these wishes, and look at others who are living our dreams, there is still so much more to consider.

While it would just be the most amazing godly gift for us to broaden our family, at least we are happy with one another. All we have is each other. And that is both the gift and the curse. Of course I have my family, but it's just not the same. When I think of something happening to me and my child, my baby being left in a world without me, I do not feel comfort or at ease. I feel distraught. Not that he will be loved, my family loves him unconditionally. However there is no completely unconditional, unjudgemental love and understanding of a child than from their parent. Uncles and aunts and grandparents will love like no other, but will never understand his humor or jokes or anger or appreciate his growth and intelligence as the person who made him - me. To look at him everyday and notice just a hint of growth in his fingers and to recall the teeny tiniest fingers and toes on the sonogram just when he was a couple of months in my belly, and then when he was born and putting his feet in between my fingers - to looking at these ginormous, smelly yet still kid and cute toes and long fingers.  To the moments of having to reprimand him equally by being firm and loving to when he just annoys the shit out of me and I just, GOD, want to smack the hell out of him. He's still my baby. A grown and only 7 year old baby at that.

Alongside the beauty of life and the universe also comes it's wicked and unpredictable nature. There have been so many who have lost their children young. There have been so many children who have lost their parents. Nothing and no day is ever promised and with this in mind there is never a true chance to prepare for such catastrophes as death, regardless of how natural it is. Regardless of how healthy you are, or life insurances that you buy. The truth of the matter is one day we will be gone. One day I will be gone, and he might have to live without me. And while I can only wish that I will be blessed to see a day in age like my grandmother and see my great-grandchildren running around me, again nothing is promised. As much as it could happen, it could not, and I could go so much sooner leaving my baby here with no parent which to me means alone.

This - my friends - is the hardest, most difficult thought and realization of them all. Not losing my job. Not missing dates from the online website. Not necessarily even death. But death too soon. Death before I can meet the man of our dreams. Death before giving my son the best gifts ever - a sibling(s), a pet and a father - not in that order of course. As much as I look forward to passing and being one with the cosmos and the universe and experiencing infinity, I could never go peacefully knowing that my baby is here without someone else who would love him as much as me. And with so many other parents who have died in crashes, accidents, overdoses, murders, cancers,  and so many other circumstances, the likelihood is as good for any of this to happen. However, I believe deep in my heart that with awareness and faith, that all of this will be considered and while we have not had the luck or the blessing to have a man of our own who can give him the sibling he so desires, or give me the eternal promise of love for us both, I have to have faith that this is still written in the cards for us. For him. For me.

Just recently lil L became interested in God, church and prayer. Coming from me who has made up my mind about religion so many years ago, now that he is in school and learning so much from his peers and friends, he was bound to pick up a few notions and thoughts about the whole thing. Even though I do not believe in one religion, I think the concept can be a beautiful thing. So when he asks me about church and God and Jesus and if we can pray, who am I to shun or say no? It's at these moments that I wished I learned more about religion before I completely stopped the practice so I would have more to tell him about it. But at this stage in our lives we could use a little prayer, a little insight into opening up ourselves to a higher understanding. Perhaps not a complete crossover but to have a better grasp on it all I think is a beautiful thing. How we will work this into the rest of life with all of my other work and stresses - I don't know - but we will take it one day at a time.

The same as with life. It is so easy to get so worried, bent out of shape and stressed over the unknown and over what we cannot control. I cannot control if "God" or the universe has put me here to have my wonderful son only to take me away from him either early or late. I cannot predict if I will ever get married and have other kids and how that line of life would go either. I do not know why I have the pleasure of being with this most interesting child of mine all by myself, but I do know that I wouldn't have it any other way. What would my life be if he were not here? What would like be in the future without him here, with me or not? I have to have faith that no matter what the reason, that it has happened. That all I can do is take our lives into my hands and mold them as much as humanly possible before the inevitable happens - whatever that may be.

But I will say this - through any worries, tears, happiness or sorrow I look over and see him, I lean over and smell him, I reach over and feel him and know that this was and continues to be the best blessing I could ask for in my  lifetime. And at least I have this and am alive AND GOT A JOB and a roof over my head to provide for my little love. Tonight I will pray that I can continue to have these things and be blessed for a life long enough to see my son do it, too.



(I hate when I write posts but don't publish them so they just sit there in my queue. I'm going to publish this. Yes, I'll publish it. Sorry for any errors, I'll reread in the morrow. G'night!)