The Yes Woman

One of the hardest parts of raising a remaining child after the death of a child is being able to tell them no.  About anything.  I'm not kidding.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but I promise you it's true.

In the beginning, it's the shock.  You don't even notice if your child just had 3 pops in a row, nothing for dinner, and candy before bed.  If you do notice, you're not sure where the pop and candy even came from, aren't sure what the steps are to making a meal, and frankly, who the hell cares?

It goes on this way for some time.  Many, many meals come from a drive-thru window.  Bedtimes are a ridiculous thought since no one is sleeping normally and the entire household has been thrown into unimaginable, dark chaos.

Your child seeks you as his shelter and you provide it, as best you can, most of the time only dully aware that he is even next to you at all.  You are still seeing your girl on the road.  You are still on the road running to her.  You will be there for at least eighteen months.

After the shock, it's a long dark tunnel that spans years.  All any of us could do was survive.  One foot in front of the other, or better, one knee in front of the other as we crawled.  Who cared if your child cleaned his room, ate his veggies, and washed behind his ears?  Once one of your children has waltzed out the door with a smile and never returned, all the small stuff just ceases to matter.

All that good parenting you did before you came upon your child splayed on the road?  It fades away.  Instead you ruminate over the time you disappointed her by saying "No, you can't buy two purses today.  You have to pick one.", You wince thinking of the times you were grouchy with her because you were tired or she was difficult.  You find yourself second-guessing the times you wouldn't let her date the wrong boy whose red flags were a mile long.  Shouldn't I have let her have any small happiness her heart desired, even if she may have gotten terribly hurt in the process?

See, cause if all those "good decisions" came to a bloody, broken end, what's the point, anyways?  That's what you will think for a long time because you are hurt and angry and broken yourself.  You will also be stingy with your love for a little while just because you can't bear to think of loving this next child just as much as you loved the first only to have him snatched away from you at a second's notice, and put into a box, too.

Finally, after way too long, you give your love freely because your other child is worth it and being a coward is no way to live.

But you still don't want him to be denied any small pleasure that you can by any stretch of the imagination afford, because what if you were to say no and he died at school the next day?  What if he got hit by a car walking home from the bus stop? You'd have to carry that with you for the rest of your days, and with the don't-breathe-on-me-at-the-movies and keep-your-hair-out-of-your-soup thoughts already in there, there's just not much room left.  You also tend to do almost everything for him because it feels good to take care of him when you can no longer do anything for his sister.

But then, suddenly one day, it occurs to you.  What if he doesn't  die?  What if he lives and has been given anything he wanted and was never told no only as an insurance policy against your parental regret?  What if he grows used to having everything done for him and not contributing to the household or world around him?  What kind of man would he be?

This is why I am beginning to say no sometimes and let my teenage son be disappointed.  This is why I am beginning to make him wait for things that he really wants.

I catch myself sometimes wavering and wanting to sayyes to whatever he asks for because it is true, he could die tomorrow- look what happened to Cory.

But then I remember that being a good mom isn't about preparing them to get everything they want right away in case they die.  It's about raising a child into a young adult who can handle being told no, who can wait for things they really want, who starts to look at the decisions they are making, and the consequences of their actions.   Those are life skills, not death skills.  I can only go forward thinking Jake will live.  He may not, but in the meantime, I'm filling his toolbox with the things he needs to know if he does.