Things I Shouldn't Read or See

There are things I probably should no longer read or see.

This morning, I saw a headline about a 16-month-old girl who was left alone in a playpen while her mother took a vacation for 10 days.  When she returned, the child was unresponsive and either died or had died.  I immediately started to cry.  I really should stop clicking on and reading such articles as it breaks my heart and results in immediate tears.  I don’t leave my plants for 10 days without arranging for someone to water them!  I would not leave a child that age alone for 10 hours, much less 10 days.  I would likely be checking every 10 minutes or less.

My mother was this way near the end of her life.  I thought it was because of her recent stroke, but I don’t know that it didn’t happen before that.  I just knew about it, because I was caring for her after the stroke.  We couldn’t let her watch the evening news.  If anything came on that stated or implied that children were in danger, she would burst into tears and cry out “the children, the children!”  This was at the point where she couldn’t carry on a conversation and often spoke gibberish.

Shortly after the war in Ukraine began, I saw an image on television that still plays in my mind.  A young boy, perhaps about 10, was walking down a road with devastation all around.  He was completely alone, no adult near him, and he was carrying a black garbage bag.  I assumed the bag contained his belongings.  He was staggering along the road crying as he went.  This image keeps coming back to my mind and causes tears to well up in my eyes.  My only comfort is that I hear the Lord say, “the hairs of his head are numbered.”

I don’t know if it is old age or the fact that my emotions are more raw than ever before since the loss of my husband.  Then again, I’ve had these feelings at other points in my life.

I know it’s not Christmas, but I first heard this song in the late 60s before we had children, and it brought tears to my eyes then, as it expressed the desire for all children to be cared for and loved.

Sandler and Young, I Sing Noel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4R06T14Qac

My Son vs the Mouse

Today, as I was missing my husband, I thought of the many times when something difficult seemed to happen while he was out of town or tied up at the office.  Many of these incidents were uncomfortable and best forgotten, but one is rather amusing and made me smile.

We did not often have mice in our big old Victorian home, but on one occasion, we found evidence of the presence of a mouse.  Bill set a trap and caught the critter.  This happened just before he was scheduled to go out of town on a business trip.  There was discussion among the children about my aversion to mice.  This stemmed from my father terrorizing me as a child by chasing me while holding a dead mouse by the tail.  I have no idea why he thought it was funny.  In any event, my kids wondered, what would Mom do if there was a mouse while Dad was gone?  Our son, who was about nine years old at the time, declared he would handle it.

Our son was not a macho man.  He was a …well…he was a cute little nerd boy.  He loved math and geography and sports statistics.  Eventually, he would start college at the age of 13, so he was not the type one would expect to bravely handle a mouse.

A couple of weeks later, my husband was in town, but he was at work.  One of my daughters, who was in her early 20s, was sitting in the living room and began to scream.  “There’s a mouse in here.  He’s sitting right here looking at me!”

I was in the kitchen and replied, “You’re not expecting me to come in there, are you?”

My son was in the downstairs bathroom just off the kitchen.  He came flying out of the bathroom, stopped at the back door to slip on his shoes, and ran to the living room.  He moved so quickly that the mouse did not see him coming, and he stomped on it killing it instantly.

Meanwhile, my daughter had her feet pulled up in the chair, and was shrieking, “I can’t believe he did that!  I can’t believe he did that!”

Being squeamish, I didn’t want him to handle the germy mouse, so I told him to kick it off the carpet onto the hardwood floor, and we’d leave it for his Dad to handle when he got home from work.

I smile every time I think of my cute but geeky little blond boy rising to the occasion to “protect” us.