Bereft
There are words and phrases I had been reading and skimming by for years with barely a cursory understanding of their meaning.
I lasted almost 37 years before their meanings crystallized, before I really got up close and personal with them. More and more I see these words in a book and I feel them in a way that cuts to the quick. If I see them, I stop now and re-read the sentence. I think for a few moments about the word and where it lives within my own heart. I know these words. I know them the way I know my skin, the way I know my children and my husband. I know the words so well that I feel them as my eyes slide across the page, I feel them when I turn my car into my driveway and as I climb the stairs into my house. I feel them when I lie down at night and they bear down their truth on my mind and my breath comes in sharp gasps.
It takes my breath away when a character is feeling lost or grievous. Not just when someone dies, but when all options seem lost. When everything they try has failed and answers seem impossible. When they are hurting because they simply feel like there is nothing left to hope for, when they seem to accept a certain fate. And all good books have these moments, and the odds seem stacked against them. Unlike a good book, life doesn't offer up a clean resolution or a Greek chorus to explain the hard parts.
Raising special needs children is clearly something I was not born to do. I accept that. Nobody was born for this. I feel like I've failed at this somehow and I can't seem to wrap my brain around the reality I am faced with. I have held out hope for so long, but lately it all just seems like, well, it seems like an impossible path has been laid out for me. I am living with great fear for the future for the first time in my life. Afraid of so many things, so aware of how bad things could get for my son and in turn for my family.
I can't help but feel like I'm going to lose him. That he will set upon a path of total self-destruction in just a few years and I can't let it go. I am terrified. I am absolutely, positively shaken to my core at the prospect of what is coming down the line and there is not a damn thing I can think of to stop it.
I know nothing. There is no book that I can read for the answers because one hasn't been written specifically for my boys. One does well, the other struggles. After a while, they switch places. Eight years of constant worry, of constantly looking for answers and how-to manuals that do not exist. And here we are, still entirely unsure and with no clear way through the maze of therapies, medications, and years of school ahead of us.
And somewhere in the mix, I have two daughters to mother. One at home and in those beautiful, difficult teenage years. She deserves my time and my energy as much as the others. Leaving myself a reserve of energy for her sometimes feels like running a marathon and then being asked to run a 10K immediately after. Balance. I have no balance. I've fallen off the balance beam totally and while I might have a leg up, the rest of me is just hanging there, clinging on for dear life.
Today is not a good day.
Bereft
- Bereft
- Melancholy
- Disheartened
- At a loss
- Hopeless
- Overwhelmed
- Grievous
I lasted almost 37 years before their meanings crystallized, before I really got up close and personal with them. More and more I see these words in a book and I feel them in a way that cuts to the quick. If I see them, I stop now and re-read the sentence. I think for a few moments about the word and where it lives within my own heart. I know these words. I know them the way I know my skin, the way I know my children and my husband. I know the words so well that I feel them as my eyes slide across the page, I feel them when I turn my car into my driveway and as I climb the stairs into my house. I feel them when I lie down at night and they bear down their truth on my mind and my breath comes in sharp gasps.
It takes my breath away when a character is feeling lost or grievous. Not just when someone dies, but when all options seem lost. When everything they try has failed and answers seem impossible. When they are hurting because they simply feel like there is nothing left to hope for, when they seem to accept a certain fate. And all good books have these moments, and the odds seem stacked against them. Unlike a good book, life doesn't offer up a clean resolution or a Greek chorus to explain the hard parts.
Raising special needs children is clearly something I was not born to do. I accept that. Nobody was born for this. I feel like I've failed at this somehow and I can't seem to wrap my brain around the reality I am faced with. I have held out hope for so long, but lately it all just seems like, well, it seems like an impossible path has been laid out for me. I am living with great fear for the future for the first time in my life. Afraid of so many things, so aware of how bad things could get for my son and in turn for my family.
I can't help but feel like I'm going to lose him. That he will set upon a path of total self-destruction in just a few years and I can't let it go. I am terrified. I am absolutely, positively shaken to my core at the prospect of what is coming down the line and there is not a damn thing I can think of to stop it.
I know nothing. There is no book that I can read for the answers because one hasn't been written specifically for my boys. One does well, the other struggles. After a while, they switch places. Eight years of constant worry, of constantly looking for answers and how-to manuals that do not exist. And here we are, still entirely unsure and with no clear way through the maze of therapies, medications, and years of school ahead of us.
And somewhere in the mix, I have two daughters to mother. One at home and in those beautiful, difficult teenage years. She deserves my time and my energy as much as the others. Leaving myself a reserve of energy for her sometimes feels like running a marathon and then being asked to run a 10K immediately after. Balance. I have no balance. I've fallen off the balance beam totally and while I might have a leg up, the rest of me is just hanging there, clinging on for dear life.
Today is not a good day.
Bereft
| beggared, bereaved, cut off, deprived, destitute, devoid, dispossessed, divested, fleeced, impoverished, left without, minus, naked, parted from, robbed, shorn, stripped, wanting, without |
YOUR ARE DOING EVERYTHING HUMAN POSSIBLE YOU HAVE A GREAT NEW DOCTOR, WHO IS HELPING, ALOT RIGHT, ARE FAMILY DOSEN'T GIVE UP YOU KNOW THAT AND HE WILL TAKE SOME TIME BUT I BELIVE HE IS GOING TO AMAZE US WITH EVERYTHING HE WILL BE DOING LOVE YOU
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