the tightrope

Sunday.
Day five.
Day five of fever and stomach pain and not feeling hungry... and when your fourteen year old son says he's not hungry, the world feels foreign.  He is doing just fine.  We talk, we watch TV, we hang on the couch... and ever since the doctor ruled out appendicitis, I am breathing without too much worry.  But I wander, feeling lost... and my heart cracks when I see his flushed face and those dark circles that are resting under those beautiful brown eyes.  Even though he says he's not hungry, I offered up a few dry tortilla chips for distraction, and he gladly nibbled.  Now he sleeps, in the middle of the day... and I am somehow lost again.  
This mothering job does not get easier... and sometimes I wonder if it is actually harder now than it was when they were little and depended on me for everything. 
Then... I knew it was all up to me. 
Now... I walk that tightrope strung up between then and independence.  Looking ahead, there is not much rope left... and I wonder if there is indeed enough length left before me to teach the things I feel I have neglected, or forgotten, or more accurately... never thought to teach at all.  As I glance back at the quivering rope I wonder if it might be possible to backtrack just a bit... and find myself stretching my arms out for balance as I tip towards hovering. 
But when they are sick... they are still my babies.  I am bound by the laws of motherhood to hover.  It is what we do... along with the temperature taking, the medicine doling, and the pressing of hands against foreheads as if by some magic force we might know what to do next. 
But today... I don't.  I don't know what to do.  So I look to the Healer, and ask Him again to provide all we need... to be healthy, to embrace peace.