I am not sure if I am tested or it has been proven that I am fit for battle. I only know what I have seen. Then again, I know what I can’t see or what I hate to see.
I know there are sounds that the heart, mind, and soul are not fit to withstand. I know there are cries, like the screams of a child in pain, or the pleas that we hear from a child when all they want is the pain to go away.
We are not intended for the sights, like a child laying still or seemingly lifeless with their parents sitting outside of the emergency room, helpless as ever.
We are not built for this
But we see this all the time.
I don’t know how these things are endured.
I don’t know how doctors and medical staff take this, day in and day out.
I don’t know.
I was in a doctor’s office not too long ago.
There was a child in an MRI machine, begging them to stop.
I wanted to break down the door and destroy the technician who ran the test.
But what would that solve?
I have seen things in my life. I have had my share of hospital visits. I have had my run-ins with accidents and I have had a few trips in an ambulance, which come with forgotten details because I cannot remember what was said or what took place.
God Bless my Mother.
God bless her and may she rest well. May peace find her soul because I can say that above all things, like it or not, my Mother was more than tested. And yes, she was more than proven when it came to battle.
Mom had told me about the time she watched as the paramedics rushed me down the corridor on a gurney. She told me what it was like to see me, her youngest son, her baby boy, and I was out of it.
I was nearly lifeless, and had fate chose a different outcome, Mom would have been telling my stories until she died.
These are the items of my life that would have been said by her instead of me. Therefore I realize that I am humbled enough to be an honest narrator, and safer on this side as a son, because I don’t know what it is like to have a child rushed to the hospital like this. I never received some of the phone calls my Mother had to receive.
I have seen my own child in doctors’ rooms or in emergency room visits. I understand that physical might or strength, or rage or screaming does not heal the wound or fix the scars. Violence does not solve the aches or the pain.
I know what helplessness feels like. And I know this all too well.
And please, I can say this as a parent and I can say this as an alienated Father. I offer this as a product of divorce and declare that I understand what it feels like to stand by and be totally powerless over what comes next.
But this is a problem that comes with different stations. Above all else, this is what happens when two people fail to co-parent accordingly.
Yes, of course, I admit to my wrongs. I have plenty of them.
I claim my side of the street with this, which is why I have told you and other parents more times than I can count — it’s not about being right or wrong or proving our stance or validating our rights as a parent.
Being right or wrong does not have anything to do with the happiness of the child. I see this now. Of course, I see this in hindsight. Sometimes, awareness comes after the fact, as in “too little, too late,” and thus, the window of understanding an opportunity closes.
I was asked, “How are you in an emergency?”
The truth is, I don’t know.
The truth is no one knows, until we are tested.
I know that there are times and things that I have endured or seen to which, no, I’m not sure how I pulled through.
I don’t know if I was good or bad or if what I did was profitable for anyone or memorable enough to be valued as helpful.
What does it take to be a hero?
But wait, what is a hero?
What does it mean to be a heroic or least of all, how does one do something heroic and still remain humble enough to realize certain facts.
“This has nothing to do with me!”
Heroes realize this.
The world is a big place.
We live on a big rock that tips on an axis and spins around a star we call “The Sun.” We revolve around this thing we call a galaxy that rests somewhere in what I was told is the center of some kind of infinite universe.
We hope and we pray, and we offer ourselves up to a God or to a God of our understanding. And sometimes, I have prayed with all of my heart and oftentimes, I have prayed to a God of my understanding. But at my weakest, I have prayed to a God of my convenience to which, I have learned that sometimes, this God says no, all too frequently and all too often.
What does it take to be strong or to endure the moment?
Is that heroic?
Is this message I send brave or cowardly?
Is it heroic at all to acknowledge my own weaknesses or to confess like a man humbled before The Cross, and pleading for leniency or for grace?
Or in all humility, I have seen my share of sick kids or children who lay with a challenge that no one should have to endure or understand.
I have seen the death face on children and pleaded and prayed to see them resurrected like Lazarus, four days after entering his tomb.
I have pleaded with The Almighty.
Please . . .
I have prayed.
I have wept.
And I have hurt.
But still, I ask—
What does it take to be a real hero.
I suppose I would ask my Mother because she would know.
I would ask her all of this, if she were still around.
However, I have been told something time, and time again.
God does not give you what you cannot handle.
Do you know what I say about this?
I wish God didn’t have so much faith in me because I don’t know what I can handle.
There is a little girl I know. I would walk through fire to defend her.
I would agree to pain, blindness and to losing my limbs if it meant that she would never hurt or be worried again — or if the trade were available, she would have the strongest left side and eyesight known to us all.
But no. . .
No one is around to authorize or sign a deal like this. So instead, I love in silence and distance.
I am far from her but yet I love her in any case, despite the burdens and journeys we face or the separations of adults, which we will all encounter (at some point).
What does it take to stand in the face of tragic news?
How does anyone do this?
Like say . . .
You hear the news or get a phone call or hear your child cry out in pain, and somehow, you manage to keep going, and keep fighting.
You do this, despite emotion, or despite fatigue, and regardless of the hour, the time spent, or the news ahead — what does it take to be there, and to be so strong?
I know men of valor and men of honor and I know men who are strong as ever. I know men who are battle tested and tough enough to eat glass and drink their own blood and be thirsty enough to ask for more.
But I know this.
No man among us is tougher than the man it takes to be a Mom
I am sorry to my gender and to my core, I am sorry for the wrongs of my past and the absent moments that I missed or should have handled differently.
Not all Moms deserve this title.
But you?
I have to say that yes, you are the strongest I have ever seen.
Dear Mom,
I am sorry for what you had to see. I apologize for what you had to hear, endure and more, I am more than sorry because I never understood your side of this.
I never knew what it was like to sit in your skin and see what it’s like to have part of your creation be sick or hurt.
I am only a man.
A silly, frightened and weak little man.
I don’t know what it’s gonna take for me to be better or stronger.
I only know that no one in the world is tougher than Mom.
And oh, yes what a thankless job it is (or was) to be a Mom.
Yet, somehow, you still managed to get out of bed, make sure that I was clothed and fed, and loved and still, I never realized the side of your job that was beyond my understanding.
Thank you for this lesson in humility.
I am sorry that I learn things slower or too late.
But I learn.
I heard a kid scream in pain yesterday, and I wished I was his Dad for the moment.
But I’m not and that’s okay.
I saw his Mom.
She was there.
A trooper she was and safe to say, I am not as much of a man as she is as a woman.
The Written Addiction 