Life has a way of happening weather you are ready or not.
A few months ago, I watched my youngest son run toward his U.S. Navy ship, U.S.S Harvey C. Barnum, as she was being commenced into service. I stood there watching a grown man step into his future.
If you saw the video on Facebook, you were looking at a proud family milestone. But what those 4,000 views didn’t show you is what we walked through to get to that dock.
Nineteen years ago, he wasn’t a sailor. Damien was a 2lb baby boy, coming into this world almost 4 months early. He wasn’t breathing and was medevact to a nearby hospital equipped to handle his complications. He spent his first four months of life hooked up to machines, fighting for every single breath on life support.
I remember my eldest son, then sixteen walking through the door one day, “you’re going to be a grandmother”. He wasn’t ready. He dropped out of high school, had no job, stayed up all hours of the night, couldn’t take care of himself. And yet, there he stood, proud that his fourteen-year-old girlfriend was going to have his baby. She was no better off than he was. She wasn’t ready. Neither was I.
Four months, he fought everyday for life itself. Sometimes his bio-parents showed up, sometimes they were to tired. It was me and him day in and day out. The day they said he could come home I was overjoyed. But his bio-parents failed the overnight stay at the hospital. Not once, but thrice. Social Services had to step in and made a plan.
Four months, turned into a year and I ended up with full custody of this life we fought so hard for. He refused to refer to me as Nenna, and so I became a mom again, and Pappy a dad. His bio-parents got married, then divorced, and both went on with their lives, leaving him in the past.
I held his hand as he took his first steps, did the poopy dance when he used the potty, I sat up through the night with him when he was sick, made sure he ate his vegetables at the table. Time and again, his bios would walk through the door, then exit without looking back. And in time, he forgot they existed.
The day he graduated Kindergarten, he was so proud as he looked out and saw Me cheering him on. Every ball game, I showed up. Every choir concert, every award, every parade, I was there each and every step of the way. Every step he made into the future, to me was a miracle that he had survived. A fighter from day one.
The traumas early in life, stayed with him. He rebelled for a time in the confusion with his bio-parents. He started to make bad decisions and was getting in trouble in school. Still, I fought for him. I let him face the consequences of his own actions, but still I held his hand and walked with him. Never knowing if he would see the light before the dark took over. But he did.
At 15, Damien landed his first job. Then 16, came his drivers license, his first love, his first heartbreak, the late night talks, the days I held him in my arms as he broke. Then just before graduation, at 17 years old, he came walking through the door one day:
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