Monday, 17 March 2008 00:00
Sometimes I think I don’t worry enough to really be a good mother. Mine, I know, daily tried to put us each in the Lord’s hands, tried to trust that we’d be okay. But she worried... worries, I should say. She thinks about what could, theoretically, go wrong. She carries on her shoulders all the what ifs and wonders one could come up with. She’s not a crazy worrier, but she seems to have a healthy respect for fate, for things that happen without announcement. Maybe I notice it more now that she’s fought and beat cancer. But its in her eyes when she gasps as a toddler attempts to walk the stairs, when she notices a hot cup of coffee teetering close to the edge of a table. The little things that mother’s eyes are supposed to see and move – she’s all over.
I worry I don’t worry enough.
My husband too, worries. He has, half jokingly, admitted he scans rooms for exits. He keeps his eyes out for anyone, ANYONE, who looks suspicious, especially when our children are around. He’s not paranoid, but he can cite statistics that make your skin crawl. Our children’s protection is his priority.
I let my children be boys. I let them experience the world. I seldom worry that they will not be safe. I am, almost always, with them.
With each of my children, there has been moments of worry and concern. My oldest son was born testing my limits and often, still, will do things that make me want to flip out. He was the child we had to watch by the outlets, as we walked along the lakeside, double checking that the child safety locks were turned on in the cars.
We were told shortly after his birth that my middle son had a cataract in his eye. I spent a sleepless few days reading everything I could find on the internet about infantile cataracts. My husband called his uncle, a specialist at a large hospital who deals with premature babies. We had the facts, and the facts were enough to leave us deeply concerned. I was worried, fearful really, of raising a son who might suffer blindness. How would I explain colors, how would I describe faces, how would he know the beauty of his own children some day? And then, one visit to the eye specialist, and we discovered he’d been misdiagnosed. Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. My son has beautiful and deep blue eyes and they see everything. My worries were for naught.
Today I took my newborn to an audiologist. He had, at birth, failed his hearing test. “It’s probably a gift,” I joked, “With as loud as our house is, it’ll be good if he can’t hear so well.” But inwardly I cringed, terrified of raising a child I perceived to be anything less than perfect. Not because I would love him any less, but because I worry that I am incapable, I am inadequate, I wouldn’t know how to steer, to guide, to encourage. Immediately I thought of a family in our church with two hearing impaired children. Comforted that their children speak fluently, know sign language, and have a myriad of friends, I tried to relieve my worries. And then, as if the first test was merely a fluke, he passed the hearing exam, no problems.
It seems that every time I worry, my fears are unfounded. It seems that the time I spend processing fear is unnecessary, better spent doing something else.
But deep down inside, I wonder. Is it a mother’s duty to worry? Am I supposed to spend a certain part of my children’s childhood cooped up in fear for what could, potentially, happen to them?
My biggest worry is that, somehow, through not worrying enough, I am failing my children. That someday, I’ll wish I had spent a little more time being a little more paranoid – that I’ll miss a chance to protect them. That I’ll let them down.
I want my kids to grow up knowing survival. Knowing strength and grace and dignity. And I want them to do it all flawlessly, without stumbling or getting scratched up along the way. But I remember something I read once, that we often are simply grasping for grace as we walk along this life-path. That we often are crashing into every obstacle in our path, falling down on everything that finds itself in front of us. Some obstacles are hard and rough and painful, others are beautiful, deep, and splendid. And no amount of worry clears the path.
