SuiteDisney
<font color=CC66CC>Short Post Man cracks me up!<br
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2001
- Messages
- 4,731
UPDATE: I just want to share with you what I was thinking of when I heard this report...
This is a letter written to Erma Bombeck and printed in her book, Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession.
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Dear Erma,
You feel like my best friend. The only thing that surprised me was to find out that I am taller than you.
Anyway, I have something I want to talk to you about. There is no solution to this. I just want to let you know we exist, we are human too and we hurt with the helplessness I can't begin to describe.
I belong to a group of people that doesn't even know it's a group. We have no organization, no meetings, no spokespersons, we don't even know each other. Each of us, as individuals, are way in the back of the closet with the rats and cockroaches. We may not even be any different from our neighbors. We look the same, talk and act the same, yet when people know our secret, they shun us as lepers.
We are the parents of criminals. We too love our children. We too tried to bring them up the best way we knew how. There is small solace in reading of a movie star or politician's kid being arrested. It helps but little to realize that our pain is not confined to the poor. (Although studies have shown that a rich kid is more likely to be sent home with a reprimand from the police, where a poor kid will wind up in jail.)
We are the visitors. Mother's Day, Christmas, our kids cannot come to us, so we go to them. For some of us, the hurt is so unbearable, we cut out the cause - we give up on them. Some parents don't visit, don't write, don't acknowledge the living being they bore.
I have not yet given up on my son, though the court has. I still cry, and plead, and encourage and pray. And I still love him.
I search my memory. Where did I fail him? My son was planned, wanted, and was exactly the all-around kid I had hoped for. I spent lots of time with him, reading stories, going for walks, playing catch, teaching him to fly a kite. We went to church together every Sunday since he was 4. He did all right in school and his teachers liked him. He had lots of friends, and they were always playing ball or going fishing, all the regular kid things. He was on Little League. I went to every game. He won a trophy for All-Stars. He was just a regular kid.
That's only one. Mine. There are thousands of them. Criminals with ordinary childhoods. We, their parents, trying to live ordinary lives. And maybe being ostracized by family members and certainly by society. ("Maybe it's contageous!")
Tomorrow is Mother's Day. My son is running from the police. I didn't do it, I don't condone it, nor try to justify what he did. But I still love him, and it hurts.
I hope you can find room in your heart to accept us, who love the children society hates.
I'm sure you understand why I just cannont put my name. Thanks for letting me get it off my chest.
"Mom"
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I just hope we have compassion for this soldier's parents. Thanks for reading.
