A Few of My Greatest Fears

 The quote resonated with me ever since the first time I heard it in college.  It’s interesting to look back through your life and think of what your fears said about who you were at the time.  As a child I remember being scared of the usual monsters, ghosts & witches which was only heightened after the older neighbor girl let us watch Nightmare on Elm Street.  I was always scared of fire, tornadoes, a kidnapper coming in through my window and I had an irrational fear of sharks.  I grew up in Michigan…

Anyway, as I got older and moved out ‘on my own’ for college I was scared of drunk drivers, diseases and being attacked.  Then about five years ago that all changed.  I no longer feared anything for myself, I feared only for the safety of the jelly bean that I was incubating in my rapidly growing middle.  The fears that materialize when you are pregnant are shocking!  You worry about things you didn’t even know were options to be worried about.  And of course the internet only serves to exacerbate the most irrational of those fears.  So much of that is the fear of the unknown and you anticipate that will all subside once the baby is born healthy.

Little do you realize that your fears only grow and change with time!  At first you worry about whether they are gaining enough weight, are walking & talking on schedule.  You worry about them bumping their head on some corner or getting a bead stuck up their nose.  We worry about if we're being too strict or not strict enough.  To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? And on and on and on.  Then all the fears when they begin daycare, preschool or kindergarten begin.  I know the fears of drugs, pregnancy, drinking & driving, etc. will soon follow.  The cherry on top is having to worry about dangers that are out of our control like cancer or a car accident.  That should be it…that’s plenty…more than enough.

However that is not it.  I have a fear that must compete with my fear of a no fault tragedy.  And my sweet, innocent five year-old has a fear that competes with the boogey man.  It’s 2014 in the Seattle, WA area and we have to worry about a thing called an “Active Shooter.”  My child is growing up in a time where he has to be fearful that on any given day he could look up and see a stranger on the attack in his classroom at school.  And I, as a mother, have to knowingly send my child off to something that I now view as somewhat of a mine-field.  This is not some war torn third world country that we exist in.  We live in the suburbs of Seattle, WA…USA.  How has this happened?

Don’t get me wrong…I am keenly aware of how lucky we are to live where we live with all that we have at our disposal.  But this is a fear that I cannot shake.  It is on my mind daily.  That may seem like an exaggeration or I may seem paranoid, but this fear is something I carry with me constantly.  Every single morning when I drop my son off at preschool and the teachers do their best to usher the lingering, overly affectionate, helicopter mom out the door.  And all day, every day, as I go about my work on campus at a local university not far from another recent tragedy at SPU.

Now here we are again on this October day, so close to the holiday season, rallying together to care for another shattered community.  The agony that has been thrust upon these families is unimaginable.  It is excruciating to even allow oneself to try.  The trauma that these young people are going to have to try to overcome will be arduous and we can only pray they will be successful.  The empathy I feel for the parents is intense, because I know that only last night they shared my same fears.  Yet in that moment it was all okay because they still had their babies safe & cozy under their roof.

So here I sit on this cool, rainy evening in the house we just bought to keep us warm & safe.  I have my laptop on the bed and my baby here beside me.  Though he doesn’t know what happened today he somehow senses something, because he hasn’t let me out of his sight all night.  So we are snuggled up simply enjoying each other in this moment. And just pray that we will never have to go through what the Marysville community is going through right now.  In the meantime I’m not sure if I can take comfort in the thought that my five year-old is taking part in ‘Active Shooter’ drills at preschool.  Or if it just makes me very, very sad.

#PrayForPilchuck #HugYourBabies #MarysvilleShooting #Love #MPHS