Dearest boys,
Let's talk about risk. I knew death with the loss of my baby sister. I knew it to happen and I know the pain even though I was young, but the moment you become a Momma the magnitude of life's risks change. A whole new filter comes into play.
That day I remember it clearly, I was dressed in overalls and a white and pink striped polo shirt. Strong man and I worked together so it was normal for me to be near him as he sat at his desk on the phone. I stood next him with my belly bulging with new life as he hung up the phone, his face ashen white, his voice in shock as he told me they lost the baby. Her baby was a few weeks smaller then mine. Together, each alone in our own homes, we sobbed. We cried for her loss and my gift and why it was that way. That is the day I learned the risk I was taking as a Momma, the risk to be a Momma.
Since then I've learned what I can and cannot control of the risks that come through life. It doesn't matter if it's big or small there is always risk involved. That time you were swinging high just like you, Man of the woods, had a done a thousand times before but this time breaking your arm or when you, Laughter, just fell off the bed and broke your collarbone. Or that time the dentist didn't get the cavity completely removed before filling the tooth and now we wait to find out if you'll need a root canal. Or when you were learning to ride bikes with all those scrapped up knees. Or foster care...
Let's talk about taking in orphans, strangers who know things no human should ever know. Man of the woods suggested this task and after months of contemplating we agreed. What better way to learn selfless love, and now I know the risk we put you at. Now you know some of those horrid things too. You have seen drugs, the effects, and what withdrawal looks like. You heard the words of suicide and self harm, and you've seen the trauma as we ushered you up to your room quickly to keep you from the blood, but you've seen the bandages and touched the scars. You have worried deeply for the safety of our foster-loves, and you have prayed hard. You've begun learning that to love deeply brings great risk. My heart wonders if I did right by you to bring trauma into your lives like this. I wonder if the risk was too great. I worry about your hearts and how I can protect them. I wonder if I haven't protected you from the world.
But then I listen to you talk, I listen to you pray, I watch you look for the needy in crowds and on streets and in stores. I watch you move into action when you find the helpless. I watch you have compassion on the hurting. I watch your hearts grow deep and steadfast in what you know to be true as you practice repeatedly what is right. I have learned that even when another is hurting deep you love hard. Where some fear you are confident you have power to help.
I am proud of you. I am learning daily that I can't protect you from risk, that only in tiny portions can I control the risk life hands us. That's the key I guess is that from the moment your heart beat for the first time you were apart of a world full of risk, what better way to learn about life's risk then in the arms of your parents. There are some risks I will never take again, and others I will. Always I will fight for your hearts, I will fight for your childhood, and I will fight for the men you will one day be.
I love you sweet boys.
Momma
