When I saw my son calling me just before midnight, I knew it couldn’t be good news.
Breathless, he told me that he just got home and saw that his apartment had been burglarized. Everything he and his girlfriend had of value was gone.
They are just starting out in life. Everything they own would probably fit into the bed of a pickup truck, with room to spare. The thief took their electronics and the Xbox. Not to be outdone by the Grinch, the burglar even took their phone charging cords.
Perhaps the worst loss was the missing cash. They had been stashing money back, to pay the deposits to move into a safer place in a better neighborhood. All that saving–gone.
I can’t even express how bad I felt for my boy. I’ve lived 50 years on this planet and never been robbed. He’s only 20 and already experienced it.
It’s just not fair. You moms know how we are. I’d rather go through it any day than have my child be stolen from. It just makes me sick that there are people out there with such little regard for others that they just take what they didn’t earn.
They created a GoFundMe to ask for help replenishing that rent money, and I don’t mind sharing it if you want to help. We’ve all had moments where we’ve been kicked while we’re down. And as the Bible says in James 2:16 (CEV), “You shouldn’t just say, ‘I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat.’ What good is it to say this, unless you do something to help?” Don’t you just love how practical the word of God is, how it reminds us that empty words are exactly that? If you are part of the body of Christ, he gives us these opportunities to be his hands and feet, to show grace and mercy in a tangible way.
Anyway…can I just say that this whole “parenting an adult” thing is so hard? I know alllllll the older mamas in my life told me it would be like this, but like every stage of motherhood, you just don’t get it til you live it yourself.
I don’t care if they’re taller than you, and fully bearded and living hours away: when they hurt, you hurt. When they are in crisis, you want to drop everything and run to their side, whether that’s feasible or even a good idea. You never stop seeing them as your babies.
They never stop making you cry.
(They also never stop making you laugh, smile or feel joyous, either, so it’s all good in the end.)
I talk about it often, and think about it more, this concept of a child leaving the nest. They do fly away, that’s for sure. But that place in your heart made just for them? It never, ever narrows or shrinks, or reduces in any way. A mother’s love, that thing is forever!