My Two Sons

It’s been a while since I wrote a post. It’s taken me this long to adjust to being 52! Only kidding. There has been a lot going on. Let me tell you about my sons.

My youngest son who is 15, is on a home school basketball team. Since it is a home school team there aren’t that many teams for them to play in our area; the league consists of home school and small private school teams. This means we must travel to various sporting events in our state. This weekend the team played in a tournament about an hour away. They played two games on Friday and two on Saturday. It was a fun, long, boring, exciting couple of days.

Friday morning, just 45 minutes before we were scheduled to leave, I passed my oldest son’s bedroom and noticed he wasn’t in his bed. (This son will soon be 20 years old.) After checking a few other key spots in the house I peeked out the door to see if his car was in the driveway. It wasn’t.

He had gone to a midnight showing of a movie with some friends the night before, and he apparently didn’t make it home. I was on the verge of panic after I called his phone 16 times only to get his voice mail!

My husband was finally able to get in touch with one of the guys he had gone to see the movie with, and learned that our son had just left to come home. This was good news.

My son walked in a few minutes later and asked me about the missed calls on his phone. He truly didn’t get that we would be upset. He kept checking his phone throughout the night, he told us, just in case we wondered where he was and if we were trying to get in touch with him. How very thoughtful of him.

I told this man-child of mine that my problem wasn’t with the fact that he went to see a movie and hung out at his friends’ house afterwards…all night. I know the family. They’re good kids. So is my son. The problem was my mother’s mind ( after praying “Please God, let him be okay”) and where it took me.

My son has been stabbed or beaten, these were the thoughts racing through my brain, and the police have no way of notifying me that he is either dead or in the hospital, because he has no ID on him (since his wallet was stolen by the thugs that had jumped him in the parking lot, after the movie, while walking to his car.) And surely if he were okay he WOULD ANSWER HIS PHONE!!! And to top it all off I can’t even file a missing person’s report for 24 hours (or is it 48?) since he is an adult.

Oh the fun of living with adult children. It is a balancing act, this phase of life. We’ve raised them well, and they are old enough to experience the freedom and responsibility of choosing how they wish to conduct their lives. Although this type of thing happens very rarely (thank God for that) it serves as a reminder that one day in the not too distant future they will be living on their own, and I will no longer experience this type of parenting moment (thank God again) though I must admit, that leaves me with a bitter-sweet feeling.

As far as a mother’s mind goes, I think my son is a little wiser on that subject.