Red Eyes

Everyone has their one thing that they worry about. The thing that can keep them up at night, punching and repunching the pillow at 3 a.m., spilling over those midnight tears that never come at any other time.

Everyone has their one thing. Mine is my son.

I worry that he won't survive. I worry that maybe we're doing the wrong thing. Even in the daytime, quietly in the background of my mind as I go about my work, I am tense, waiting for the phone call that will come to say that something has happened, something irrevocable, something we can't fix no matter how hard we try.

I can't protect him all the time. I can't reshape the world so that he fits into it.

I ache from holding him in the Light.