For more years than I care to remember, and still to this day, I have been worried about my youngest child. He is grown now, in his thirties, but my worry continues and my heart still aches when I see him or think about him.
In grade school we realized that he had learning disabilities. It wasn’t until high school that the troubles started beginning. It was a small high school where everyone knew everyone. His brother, who is two years older than him, was a very difficult act to follow. His brother had the charm, was the football hero, one of the most popular kids in school with a great group of friends.
There was no way he could compete with his brother so he went in the opposite direction. He had a difficult time in school. He hung out with the wrong crowd, got into trouble in and out of school. I used to tell him “I can wallpaper your room with all the detention slips that come home.” He drank too much and most likely did drugs.
His resource room teacher and I hugged each other the day he graduated from high school. We were holding our breaths to see if he really would get that diploma.
After high school he went to our community college. That did not work. Then he tried a college that had a program for students with learning disabilities. That did not work. So he did what most unemployed actors do, worked as a waiter.
He was about a year into that when he called me at work. “Mom,” he said, “will you co-sign on a loan for me to go to culinary school. I have filled out all the forms and sent in the application but I need you to co-sign.” Since he never spoke to me about any of this, I was shocked and elated and so proud that he found this on his own. With my fingers crossed, I hoped there was the possibility this would be his career. My son, the chef. And I prayed, God, please let this work.
Yes, I told him, I will sign the loan papers. There was no thought in my mind that I would not do this even though everyone told me I was crazy. “You are divorced and have to worry about your own financial status, he’s messed up on everything so far, it is a waste of money for you, he will never finish.”
But how could I not help him? I was desperate for him to find anything that he could do and if this was it, then I was behind him all the way. After all, my other two children went to college and had it paid for. Just because I was divorced when it came time for him to go to school, it would be unfair to him not to try to give him the same opportunity.
He finished and graduated culinary school and has worked in some of the most prestigious restaurants and hotels in New York City, The Waldorf Astoria and The Plaza, to name a few. Happy ending? Not quite.
One night he took the train home from work and his friends were waiting at the train station for him. His friend got a new car and so off they went, speeding down a six lane highway. The driver hit the guard rail, the car went flying across the road and smashed into a wall and my son was expelled out the back window of the car, and laid on the highway.
Two girls, I should say, guardian angels, coming down the highway saw what had occurred and put their car sideways, across the road, so another car would not run over my son in the dark of night. He managed to drag himself to the shoulder of the road, ambulance came, guardian angels disappeared, and fourteen hour surgery was underway.
A rod in his thigh, metal plate in his arm and he continues to work. Constant pain every day is how he lives. Surgeries continue on and off throughout his years. He is prepared for no other career, so standing for 14 hour days six, sometimes seven days a week is what he does. I do not know how he does it. I would not be able to stand the pain.
Throughout these years he still got into trouble. Whenever he doesn’t answer his phone for a couple of days, I get into a panic, thinking the worst. When he finally does contact me, I feel relief and anger at the same time. Why do I have to worry about him? Will this fear ever end?
He fell in love and was so happy, thinking this was it. He would finally be married like his friends and siblings. And then the relationship ended. It is still unclear exactly what happened, but in speaking to both of them, I do know they were both at fault. I could feel his broken heart and it broke mine. He told me “she was the love of my life.” He has not had another girlfriend since then. He has closed his heart to protect it from pain.
So many times I have asked God, why do you make it so difficult for him? Why can’t you give him the same things his siblings and friends have? St. Jude, for impossible causes, has heard me say so many novenas to him to help my son, yet I still wait.
My son loves his nieces and nephews. When he is with them, I see in him his longing to have his own children. He has his Nana’s rosaries beads hanging on the wall in his room. What bachelor does that?
And I feel so guilty. Guilty for all the times I have lost my temper with him. Guilty that it is my fault for what he is going through. Guilty that I did not love him enough. Guilty that I passed these genes into him. Guilty because it just had to be, in some way, my fault.
The thing is ~ he has so much love in his heart. He is so sensitive. Yet, he is very difficult to deal with because he has so much anger in him. This anger is his cover for his fears, his heartbreak, his anger at his father and his learning disabilities. All I can do is help when I can. We feel the love between each other but our conversations are strained, at the very least.
After telling a friend of mine how many bad hands my son has been dealt, she replied, “He must have something very special to do here.” And I found solace in that. He is hear to teach someone something ~ maybe me. I cry, sometimes, thinking of him. It is difficult to see him in emotional and physical pain.
I have decided to tell him each week something special about him. Something that no one sees, his big heart, his tenacity to work, standing long hours, even though in terrible pain everyday, how proud he makes me feel as my son, how wonderful it is to see him with his nieces and nephews and the joy he gets from it. I am going to tell him ALL the wonderful things about him.
My regret is that I did not tell him years ago how great he is. I feel so guilty that I was not able to look past all the trouble he was causing and see the emotional pain he was in and love him even more. I will know these regrets for what I did not do then, and I will change. I will do now what I should have done all those years he was growing up. I will shower him with love.
It is never too late ~ “If not now ~ When?”
