You Can Curse

I hate that my son’s in pain.

I hate it because watching him focusing his entire being on not screaming tears at my gut.

I hate it because it robbed him of a normal adolescence and put him years behind the kids he entered high school with.

I hate that it makes me feel like a failure as a parent – no matter what I do there is no magic bullet – no magic jelly bean he can swallow and make this all go away. And all my research and all my search for doctors and all my nagging and work and pestering hasn’t found a cure.

Not yet. We’re getting closer. He’s held down jobs. He’s back in school. He has friends, He has hours every day and days every week and sometimes even weeks every month when he’s functioning and not in pain. But he’s not there yet.

And there are days I cry. And days my husband and I laugh about how ludicrous it is that we celebrate when events any other family would consider routine – trimming a Christmas tree, making it to a movie, going out to dinner – just happen without us really worrying about it. We plan things and they happen. A miracle! (Okay, there’s an edge of hysteria in that laughter. )

But I can also curse. Because nothing will ever give us back the years we lost to pain. And no meme and no inspirational video and no final recovery – and I do have faith in recovery and cure – will fix that.

But there’s a future and a tomorrow. And I have faith it will be better.

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