"Are you going to wait or will you be coming back for it?"
"How long of a wait will it be?"
"At least forty five minutes..."
"Hmmmm.....I'll wait..."
With that part of the decision made, I decided how I would spend those forty five minutes in the hospital while waiting for a prescription to be filled at the pharmacy; our insurance offers a nice discount on medications if we make use of it, so we do. I decided to go up to the gift shop and do some browsing. I'll say!....I was in there for the entire amount of time I was told I would need to wait. I think I touched everything in the small shop at least once! I actually took the time to read cards, a luxury I never indulge in as I am usually on the move: I see the heading of a section, "birthday for HIM/HER" or "encouragement" or "sympathy", thumb through a few and quickly make my choice. But on this day, I read and enjoyed many cards BEFORE making my choices.
I was making my way to the stuffed animals, just because I wanted to, and the "text" feature on my phone began its chiiiit chitttt sound; it was my son...he just needed to talk; he is 27 , lives down south, and is struggling to make sense of the economic meltdown we are living through, struggling to keep his thoughts positive as he waits even longer to really get his career back on track. One more time, for emphasis: HE IS STRUGGLING, and he was looking for a place to vent and get encouragement. So for the remainder of the wait-time for my prescription, I listened to my son and thought about how odd it suddenly seemed that I think of him as "grown up" at 27. I thought about how even without the global crisis we are experiencing, he still has much growing to do and that the same could actually be said of ME. It was with that realization, that basically we are ALL always "growing up", that I started to lose my footing a bit: here my son was turning to me for a listening ear, maybe for a bit of guidance, in the grip of a situation that is bigger than anyone could have imagined, and I suddenly felt very young and ill-equipped to help him hold his sorrow and frustration, even though that is really all I CAN do, help him to hold it: I cannot fix it, and to realize that I found myself to be basically bereft of words of wisdom on the subject, well.....it made me feel like I am in need of as much "growing up" as he is!
He did not know of my hesitation, did not sense it; I don't think he ever does: no matter what the topic, the struggle, the disappointment, I am first and always Mom to him: just the sound of my voice, in real-time or through my thoughts appearing in text on his phone, I am just as grown up as he needs me to be.
How come my soul was ever-so-slightly shaking when we disconnected then?
Parenting never ends, even when the children look for all intents and purposes like adults, like grown ups.
Some days I sure do wish MY parents were still here to talk to; I doubt that we would be texting each other, but I sure would like to ask them if THEY ever felt this way.
God-speed my son.....all will be well.
