When the light shines through

Worry is part of being a parent. When our children are babies we worry when they don’t sleep, when they are asleep we worry that they are sleeping too much, when they eat we worry about what they are eating when they don’t eat we worry even more.

As they grow up we worry about all the decisions that we make, we worry that we are doing the whole parenting thing wrong, we worry that they will end up angry or spoilt or in therapy or all three.

As they get older we worry about alcohol and drugs and peer pressure and not getting home. We worry about social media and sexual partners and not working hard enough to get the job they want.

It’s a continuous worry because, even when they are all grown up and have children of their own we still worry, and  our worry doubles because then we have grandchildren to worry about as well.

But occasionally, through all that grey sludge of worry, the light shines through and all we see in that brightness, the essence of our children. The proof that for all the mistakes we make, the times we slip up, the things we have no idea how to do, nothing really matters but the fact that our children have made their own sense of the world.

Yesterday the beam of light made my whole day glow.

We had had a bad night the night before. My brother-in-law was ill and he and my husband had to leave in the middle of dinner at my sister’s house to go to the emergency department. My brother-in-law suffers from schizophrenia (and I don’t use the word “suffer” lightly) and sometimes his disease is quite confronting, as it was the other night.

My nephew gave us a lift home as it turned out Mr Pencil and Uncle Pencil were going to be at the hospital for a while. Before he went to sleep Little Pencil released all his anxieties as he is want to do. He didn’t like the idea of his dad being at the hospital all night long but he understood that right now Uncle Pencil needed him and he had to be there. We spent ages going through how sad the illness is and how it is part of our lives, how it is part of Uncle Pencil but it is not all of him, underneath that disease is a beautiful man, an uncle, a brother and a son.
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Of course seeing Uncle Pencil suffer so immensely is awful but I am glad that my son learns that people are people no matter what they are carrying with them.

The next day, in the car, my husband was still feeling very tired and emotional. The way he cares for his brother, like a parent for their own child, is astounding. I told him that. I told him that he is amazing the way that he cares for his brother and looks after him.

“I don’t see it like that” he said “after all I am only doing what anyone in my situation would do”

And from the back of the car Little Pencil piped up:

“It’s exactly because you think that’s what anyone would do, that makes you such an amazing man, dad”.

And I stopped worrying momentarily about my little boy on the cusp of being a man because he really has got his shit together.

I am almost of proud of him as I am of his dad. Both beautiful men.