Fearless

I used to be fearless. 

But as I watch Will (15) leap from rock to rock in Acadia National Park, I think my heart will stop.  Everything in me wants him to sit down, to stop moving, to be safe.  Instead, camera in one hand, balancing with the other he scrambles over the rocks quickly and confidently until he stumbles a bit.  He turns to look at me with a wicked grin and I burst out "Will, please stop.  You are scaring me!"  "Mom, it's your PTSD.  I'm okay.  Chill out."  He's right, and I know it.  I have to stop watching him. I can't stop the surge of panic that now has taken up residence in my soul.  I hate this about myself.  I want to go back to the time where I didn't know that my child could die in a matter of seconds.  I want to be that mom again. 

Will pities me and slows down.  He pleads with me "Mom, come on. Stay with me.  I want you to see this.  This is good for you."  I hate when my own kid "therapizes" me.  He wants me on this adventure with him so he accommodates my pace.  Temporarily.

He sees some tidal pools below us and is anxious to get there.  He believes in me more than I believe in myself and quickens his pace.  I literally flatten myself against the side of the rock and barely keep it together as I say "Will, I'm going back.  I can't watch you...you are going to have to do this by yourself."  He is disappointed in me.  He thinks I am afraid of falling.  But I am not.  I have no fear of myself falling.  I am absolutely terrified that he will.   The mom "before" would have overridden her fear in order to keep up, but not this one.  My fear owns me today.  I tell him, tell myself, that this is temporary.  That I am working on it and that this is me getting better.  The fact I am even letting him do this is taking everything I've got.  This has been a year of meeting the end of myself.  I no longer have the will power to push through.  And while there are moments like these where I curse my circumstances and wish I could be more than I am, I am deeply aware that I need grace.  Grace to be broken, and afraid and dependent on a very Grace-full, Fearless God.  He is Enough.  I don't have to prove anything to anyone...not even to myself. 

I creep back to the safety of the larger, flatter rocks, and from a distance it is easier to watch Will because I don't feel his every movement.  I see him jumping from rock to rock as he pushes his body and commands the mountain.  He gets smaller as he goes down, down, and then he arrives at the place where the ocean crashes into the rocks.  He looks up...wondering if I might still be there and I wave at him.  Will is euphoric. I feel such a wave of joy roll over me that the panic is pushed away.   Will is fearless and in this I find great hope that I will be again someday. 

*Photography by Will Rodriguez