There are countless ways in which your child can break your heart… Even the most innocent statement has the ability to pierce your soul and leave you breathless… The challenge lies in maintaining your composure, in never letting them see how it hurts…
In those moments I remind myself that John and I have done our best, given the unwanted change in our circumstances; even so, I think about how the girls’ have been shortchanged by our altered state…
Case in point: Gracie came in after an especially long day…
“You won’t believe what happened today. This morning, I’m in my new class, chatting with the girl beside me, waiting for things to get going and she mentions her boyfriend… After a few minutes, I realize I know who she is talking about; I ask if his name was Matt… She said yes, do you know him? I told her our families had known each other for a long time, that he had actually been my brother’s friend… You should have seen the look on her face when she put our name and the other pieces together… When she texted Matt and told him I was sitting there with her, he asked how y’all were doing…
And then tonight at our Relay for Life kick-off, my boss Hal came over and said he saw our picture on the bulletin board at Panera. He was there earlier for a meeting and one of the people with him noticed it, mentioning how great it was that a teenager was actually taking a stand about cell phones and driving. He mentioned one of his team members was involved in the same thing; he turned around, saw the newspaper clipping and realized it was me!
Twice in one day! Just once, it would be nice to be anonymous and not have the whole world aware of my life story…”
Both of our daughters have complained about the difficulty of living in a place where no matter where they go, they encounter someone who has heard all about us...
I understand their desire to blend in, the wish to be identified by something other than the tragedy that smashed our lives to bits and pieces… Sometimes I feel it too; I know John does as well. Nevertheless, we cannot undo what happened; Brian’s accident changed everything. It is a fundamental part of who we’ve become…there is no escaping that fact. It influences the decisions we make…the opinions we hold…our view of the road ahead…
I’m not sure if the underlying issue is about others knowing as much as it’s about controlling the timing of that knowledge…
I suppose the only way to be sure is to move far, far away…
Like everything else with our family, it’s complicated…
“Our lives carry us along in ways we cannot control, and almost nothing stays with us.” – Paul Auster
Wishing you many blessings and hope…tg
Tammy will update her blog twice weekly…
