When do your children stop being your babies?
My son, Stretch, is 22 and 6 weeks ago he started what was supposed to be his dream job. Within a week it was obvious something was not right but for his sake I stayed positive. I went down to visit him while his Dad was away and I could tell he wasn't happy. I left his dog with him in the hopes that would help.
Yesterday Badger bill, for some reason he can't explain, decided to call Stretch. There had been an accident, a stray dog had run out and in avoiding it Stretch had driven his truck into a ditch and hit a tree. He was taken to Casualty with a head injury and kept in for five hours. When he was told he could go home he rang for a lift and was told everyone was too busy he'd have to get a taxi. When he got back he was told he would have to go back to work despite the hospital saying he should rest for 48 hours.
This morning he left after being bollocked for being lazy and idle, after 6 weeks of working on average 16 hours a day 7 days a week without a day off. No one asked how he was, no concern was shown for his injuries, no one had even tried to find out whose dog was running lose at 6 in the morning across private land.
Which brings me back to my question because my only response to this whole situation was, 'I want him home and I want him home now!' It was only after I had seen him and made sure he wasn't seriously injured that I could start to think about what had happened. Even now the sight of his forehead, cut and grazed and visibly lumpy, makes me feel physically ill.
I have never maternal is the way it is portrayed in the media. I just can't work myself into a frenzy over babies, I don't like cute and prefer my small children poached and served on a bed of melba toast with steam asparagus and drawn butter. But I am constantly surprised by the overwhelming maternal instinct I have to protect my children, even though they are grown men who tower over me.
It is scary to realize the force of nature within myself that means I was ready to make the two hour drive just so I could get arrested for trying to choke the life out of a man I've never met simply because I hold him responsible for hurting my child.

tempus fugit

Life has a funny way of rushing past you. It's like a trip down the motorway, one minute your counting the exits till it's time to come off, a quivering lump of expectancy sits in the pit of your stomach as you comtemplate arriving at where ever you're going. Then you arrive and before you know it it's time to leave and your back on the motorway counting exits until you are nearly home.
Meg got old very suddenly. Within a few months she went from being the slightly bewildered, befuddled old dog she had become to an unrecognisable mess. Unable to eat or drink, barely able to stand it was obvious her race was nearly run. She is buried in the wood.
For the last 18 months we have been fund raising for Badger Bill's latest adventure on behalf of the National Deaf Children Society. This year it was Iceland, 9 days over lava fields and glaciers. The journey so long anticipated had been and gone, even now it is a memory. The only thing left to lok forward to is seeing the photographs.
I keep reminding myself that it is important to live in the here and now, revel in the moment but it is not easy to do. Sometimes the moment is so mind numbingly boring or fills you with such apprehension it is easier to slip into another time when things will have to get better, even if it just sitting at my desk on a Wednesday afternoon cmtemplating what I'll do on the weekend.
The problem is you get so caught up in 'might be's' and 'hope so's' that you lose who chunks of lifetime.