When a Child Wanders Off Part Two

What you're about to read is absolutely subjective.  It is emotional and anecdotal.  I know that what we always need is to run to the Bible and seek out God's will for our lives.  I believe that in it is everything we need for "life and godliness."  It is my hope and intention to explore that "out loud" here, but first I want you to see the heart of one whose child has wandered off...

This post is going to have to suffice for the promised continuation.  It is not what I had intended as part two, but it is what I can do right now.  Right now some therapy is needed, and writing is certainly that for me.  I do intend to write the original part two some day, but it will really be part three, I guess.

Rod Serling’s residence in my house, of which I wrote last time, is a continuing theme.  Just when I’m deciding that he’s gone, and I’m living life as normal, I bump into him as I turn a corner.  That is a description of today, so I am going to just write about what living in The Twilight Zone is like.  At so many turns and times, I want to escape, to run far, far away, and honestly, with some particularly oppressive, suffocating events, I hope to just d-i-e.  That said, I think it might be therapeutic to write about how my buddy, Rod, has plagued me.

When your own child wanders off it’s a bit different than when it’s someone else’s.  It is (no tongue in cheek here) your worst nightmare come true.  It’s heavy, it’s desperate, it’s clarifying and yet incredibly disorienting; it’s a perpetual and terrifying fog.  Those you love seem to become your enemies, your everyday tasks seem impossible to perform, chocolate and potato chips seem the only acceptable foods, and children who have not wandered off are longed for as comfort and yet seem as one of those impossible tasks.  God is the only real comfort and is craved and pursued, but in many moments seems elusive.  Many of the things you’ve always been confident about become confusing, and the feeling of impotence in every familiar responsibility is paralyzing.  The utterance of the name of The Child is jarring, and his image draws the most unstoppable flow of tears.  Oh, and so do many other things: certain words, certain foods, certain people, certain songs, and certain places.  You just don’t ever know when you’ll be awash with the bitterest tears.

People offer advice and comfort, which is kind of them, but mostly it feels like salt in a wound.  Some people blame you for the debacle.  The discordant, reverberating echo of “You need to think about where you went wrong” clangs in my head like some whacky cartoon character with his head caught in a bell tower bell.  Every character flaw that I see displayed in the children still at home is a piercing terror, a real, nearly paralyzing, slow motion terror.  It should not be my family that is falling apart.  (It wasn’t going to be.  I took sure steps to ensure that it would not be.  Drat that Rod Serling!) 

Some people want to tell you the best way to deal with the child who wandered off. Though their intentions are good, it feels more like your life is being micromanaged.  That’s one of the hardest parts.   While you’re grieving and just want to escape, run far, far away, or you’re hoping to d-i-e, some people want to impose heavy burdens all in the name of A Solution.  They truly mean well, I’ve no doubt, but I want them to stop solving and start acknowledging that Rod Serling’s visit is real and Very Oppressive, and that I seriously think I’m drowning in sorrow.

I don’t think people understand the source of that thick, whirling vortex of sorrow.  I’m grieving for a couple of obvious things (including what follows in the next paragraph), but one very real reason is The Solution.  You see, I don’t think it is The Solution.  “Oh no, they cry! She doesn’t have faith in God’s way.”  That’s not it at all.  I don’t think “we”’ve done it God’s way.  (About which part two was supposed to be.)  My heart aches with a pounding, gigantic force of despair because I think The Solution is faulty, and I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT WORK IN RETRIEVING A CHILD WHO WANDERS OFF.  Do you see?  The implementation of The Solution IS Rod Serling’s knock at the door and his hopelessly eerie and perpetual presence. 

The sorrow of a family split apart is agonizing.  From the loins come all, and to them you want the all to cling in glorious harmony.  Sometimes it is not to be, but it is always what you want, what you dream about.  In fact, hope of it seems imperatively vital for survival, and the possibility of dashed hopes is incomprehensible – like in a desperate, “clap your hands over your ears, squeeze your eyes shut, and belt out a loud, rebellious chorus of LA, LA, LA, LA” sort of way.

Another torturous Rod Serling encounter is with Regret.  Only when you, yourself, experience something do you know how it feels, and once you do you cringe with an overwhelming weight of guilt over having attempted to impose a burdensome Solution on another.  Hugs are much better sometimes than reminders of how we got here or imposed protocols for A Solution. 

The bottom line?  When a child of your very own wanders off you live in one twisted, black hole episode of The Twilight Zone, but it is really - for real - reality.