Dry

I feel like I been crying all damn weekend.

Yesterday morning, I received a text from a friend of mine who was expecting. I thought about her earlier in the week because I hadn't seen her on social media and I knew her due date was coming but it kept slipping my mind to call. The first thing I saw on the text was a picture of a baby's hand curled around both her and her boyfriend's pinkies. I immediately thought awwwwwww, how fucken cute! She had the baby! Then I read the text and became confused. What I thought I read was basically "our baby was born on [this] day at [this] time, weighing [this] much and measuring [this] many inches" but it ended with a request to keep her and her boyfriend in prayer and I was thrown. Wait.... what? Now it's not unheard of or even uncommon for someone to say that, but something about it was wrong. I had to read it several times before I understood... before I caught the words I had initially overlooked: "....was born into heaven...."

I cried so hard.

I cried because I know how long she had been wanting to have a baby. I cried because I watched the joy well up in her over the course of this gestation period - the pictures, the baby shower, the planning. I cried because she loved that baby so hard and was so looking forward to her arrival. I cried because she carried that baby all the way to term, birthed her, and had to let her go. I'm crying all over again just thinking about the pain she's had to be in for the last week and even more so today, on what should have been her first and very happy Mother's Day. I cried because for the first time in a long time, I didn't know what to do. More accurately, I knew there was nothing I COULD do. I'll ask you all to join to me in keeping this couple in prayer.

This morning, the midgets woke me up early like they do every Mother's Day to serve me breakfast in bed. I was about halfway through when my daughter came back in and sat on my bed asking how everything was. I told her everything was good and added, "You'll have to do this by yourself next year." She said, "yup," and 3 seconds later, I was in tears. It hit me quite suddenly; my baby boy is gonna be off to college soon. As crazy as he makes me these days, I don't know how I'm gonna deal with not seeing him every day, or every week even. How I'm gonna handle those nightly calls that soon become fewer and farther between. I know I have to cut the apron strings but it all seems to be coming so fast - even though I can still remember the days when I couldn't wait for this time to come. It's going to be a hard transition for me, but I'm going to try to be as excited for him as he is.

I'm sure that led to my next breakdown. His father hasn't spoken to him since that last incident a month and a half ago when I almost put him out. I got past it, but he didn't. I understand the issue, but it's hurtful to me at a time when I know the direction he needs can't come from me. I am not equipped to guide him into manhood. I can't relate on a personal level to what he's going through and what he's facing and because he's not a little kid anymore, he's quite aware of that. He doesn't have the same conversations with me that he has with his father. And it was in the middle of expressing that to him when he called me today that I found myself in tears again.

Now if you don't know anything about our relationship, know that I HATE showing anything to him that might come off as weakness. But as I was telling him how disappointed I was in the recent state of THEIR relationship, I didn't feel weak. I felt..... humbled. And somehow that humility gave way to his. For the first time, we spoke of our mutual fear of having done some things wrong where our son is concerned. It's okay - no parent does everything right - and we have raised a good kid, but I think there always comes a point when a parent feels a little guilty when things aren't unfolding quite the way they wanted them to. I just needed him to stop dwelling on what's already happened and start focusing on now and what's next. In the twist of all twists, he actually listened to me and agreed to fix it. Stand in the gap, Lord. #wonthedoit

So throw in Mommie Dearest, Mildred Pierce and both versions of Imitation of Life and yeah.... I been crying all damn weekend. But I did a lot of thinking too and I feel a lot clearer. I've done laundry, fed my babies, now all I need is a really good night's sleep and to not wake up to the death of Morgan Freeman and everything will be peach on the beach.