You already know this story's ending, yes, I do survive. It may seem bleak today, but there is hope.
Fear
Even though it was June, the dead, brown leaves still lingered on the forest floor from last fall. They crunched under my feet with every frantic step. The light was softer though, there were new leaves on the maples and the oaks, to mute it. I called out for Evan, again, my heart rate taking it up another notch when there was not reply.
I don’t know what I was thinking, not following him immediately outside when he walked out of my sister’s house in the wooded country of central NY.
Actually, I do know what I was thinking, “I just need a moment, a moment or two of quiet, of respite from demand, of uninterrupted conversation, of “not-doing”. This was our first day in a new place, I had taken my kids from our home across the country to start a new life here.
I also know what I was not thinking, I was not thinking, “My son will be “nowhere to be found” when I go out to look for him 10 minutes later.” I never was good at imagining the worst in advance. He was lost.
So here I was, trying to remember what he was wearing when I last saw him and imagining the rescue dogs combing the woods trying to find him, as the panic uncoiled in my chest like a rattlesnake about to bite.
Of course, I was not alone, my sister was running in the opposite direction toward the pond, because there was no way in hell I was going to go that way and face my deepest fear, that he might be there at the bottom of that deep green water, dense with algae and mud.
Suddenly, something reminded me that if I wanted to find him, I had to be still, to stop, to listen to my own senses to know what direction to go.
There was no future or past, there was no thinking or doing, only feeling, right now, and following. So, I stopped running, I stopped thinking, and I started to feel for Evan. I asked myself, “what does he feel like to me? What is the sensation that I associate with him in my body?”
Then I started walking, not thinking, just going where feet led. They turned me around, and back towards the house, down the slippery slope toward the shallow creek bed, past the rusted remnants of barbed wire fence and over a small rise which led to field of golden grasses standing about the height of my thigh.
At that moment, I called again, “Evan” and he stood up from the grass where he had been sitting, out of sight and in his own little world. And while, he had certainly in hearing distance of my frantic calls all along, he did not respond before. There had been no urgency for him, only the lure of the house cat he was following into the grass, the curiosity of the moment his only concern.
Waves of joy, relief, nausea passed through me. Tears welled in my eyes, and my knees buckled as I embraced this little person who opened a dimension of feeling in my being that I had never experienced or imagined possible.
Anger
Our first winter. The boys and I were all sick with a vicious stomach flu. The kind that confuses you with cramping and nausea and fatigue so much that you don’t know whether to crawl to the bathroom and sit on the toilet or stick your head into it.
The bathroom tile was foot numbing, but felt good to my face, even as I tried to forget the layer of filth I was probably laying on.
As the sound of gagging woke me out of my stupor, I realized what was happening in the other room. Suddenly, I had surge of energy, like when you realize you are oversleeping and are going to be late for work, again.
I got up and ran to the bedroom, just in time to see Evan vomiting on the sheets for the third time that night. The stinking pile of towels, sheets, and blankets in the corner of the room mocking me with the desperate memory of the laundromat.
Despite my own weakened state, I raged. “God dammmnnn it! Get up! Go to the bathroom! Aaaahhhhh!” I raged at my poor sick, confused boy. I grabbed him and dragged him to the bathroom, “why? Why? Why can’t you figure out how to get here when you are going to be sick?” He did not even look at me. I felt desperate, ashamed, but most of all rage.
And in a way, it felt good, I felt powerful, I felt that I was connecting into a part of myself that I did not know, but that could protect against anything, including my desperation.
Anger like the anchor for a boat in hurricane, keeping you from being swept away, but not preventing you from being swung around in the wind or taking on water. You survive, that is about it.
It was here that I met this new part of me, the angry part. The part that did not care what anyone else wanted or wanted me to do. It was good to know she was there, and anger acknowledged became much more focused, malleable and creative. So, now that I knew her, I realized I had to use this energy as a forge like a blacksmith, rather than have it consume me like a wildfire.
Surrender
I am living in a 1 bedroom apartment with two young sons, borrowing money to pay the rent, working at job that made me anxious almost to the breaking point every day.
On the baby gate at the top of the stairs, I could see the notches carved by a knife in my 5-year old’s desperate attempt to break out. The hook and eye latch which was attached to the top of the door had threads stretched almost to the end.
The house was quiet now, though. Quiet in a way that you know won’t last so you just sit still before you move on to the next task. The dull ache in my arm reminded me of the bruise left by Evan’s teeth, and I felt kind of proud of it, actually. It was something endured.
I might have been thinking about whether the neighbors could actually hear what I scream when I lose it or the next thing to do on my schedule, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that there was nothing else I could do but follow.
There was nothing else I could but wait until the next “fire” emerged, to decide what to do next. It was a kind of cruel liberation, to “not have to decide” what to do next, but to wait and see what arose as the most urgent thing. It was a kind of solace.
Struggling with a son who could not follow directions, could not be calm or quiet, who could not feel safe and connected, who resisted every request and violently rejected any command, there was nothing left to do, but follow. My only control was to relinquish control. And devote myself to this little master.
Devotion. There is a point when it becomes purely that, again, no linear thought or logic, no plan put in place and followed, no reason to be accessed. Only feeling and following and doing what can be done with what you have. And that is okay, because this one thing is for sure, this too shall pass.
Up next part 2: Hope
