You can't tell me you've never experienced loss. I wouldn't believe it. The removal of something? It happens to everyone. The degree of loss is different for the circumstance and even a positive experience that leads to change also leaves loss.
We lose our innocence, our toys, our feeling of security, our phone (gasp), our identity, our virginity, our home, our thoughts, our first love, our pride, the list goes on and on. Just insert your life altering loss here _____. Then, the things you lose that are mundane here _____.
My dad is forever losing his keys and my mom loses her patience.
June 13 was Carlon's last day of school. Two weeks too soon thanks to the strike/lock out. I went to his school that day to pick him up. He came outside and I wasn't there. This has happened before and it hasn't caused a problem but, this day, for whatever reason, he got scared and decided to walk home... BY HIMSELF!!
My sweet little 5 year old dream of a boy decided he could walk home the near 1 km to our house, crossing a busy street, taking the short cut we take, which leads beside a forested area. He said he was scared and sang 'Jesus loves me' to himself. I, meanwhile, am running around the school near crapping my pants because he is nowhere to be found and he never does this.
I was in a state of loss. My son was lost. My panic was in overload. 'Someone has taken him! He is lost, gone forever' THE most devastating feeling. Meanwhile he's walking home scared, feeling abandoned, alone, he has lost his security and trust that mommy would always be there.
When it finally came to light that the crossing guard saw him walk home I was livid. The principle, his teacher and the crossing guard asked if he had ever walked home alone before and I responded with great frustration, "NO! Because he is 5!!". My frustration was very evident and I was in tears at the panic that he still wasn't safe. It's a 15 minute walk between our house and the school.
When Hawk called that he was home safe I wept. He was safe, he was home. All I wanted was to hug him. He was no longer lost, but what had been lost?
My relationship with his teacher and the school. When he started at the school we were given an info sheet that informed us that kindergarten students were not allowed to leave the school without their guardian, and if no one came to get them they were to wait at the office.
So, how did this happen?!
I've lost a little in my relationship with Carlon. This experience is something he will never forget, and I will always, to the day I die, blame myself that it happened because I wasn't there when he came out. I've lost my trust in my ability as a mom. This trust was tenuous at best but now... it has been obliterated.
So what next? I have to talk to the school. I have been too angry to approach it but, for the safety of other children I have to. How do I forgive myself and move on? I mean this just piles on to all my feelings of doubt that we made the right decision to move here. My gut still wrenches when Carlon leaves the house to bike down our quiet, safe street to his friends house.
How do we accommodate loss? How do we overcome it? I have experienced a mountain of losses. i am climbing it and I want to see beyond it and yet another loss will happen and it either adds to the height of the mountain or causes a rock in my path and makes me stumble or it forces a rock slide and pushes me down the mountain.
Why can't I leap the mountain? Why does a loss knock me down so? I ask God to help me but I can't seem to get my footing strong. I am overwhelmed and out of breath.
Give me wings Lord, carry me over...
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