Wayward Children

Even as I write this, I can see the humor of my heartbreak; I know that someday I will laugh at the situation. And let me warn you that logic does not work with an angry 19-year-old.
"I don't even believe you're my parents anymore!" my 19-year-old son yelled as he raced down the stairs.
This was the second time he had walked away from the conversation, and the first time he slammed a trash bag against the door frame until it burst.
You might wonder what caused this outburst.
I told him that we wouldn't pay for his apartment while he attended college unless he passed his classes.
I'll just wait a minute while you re-read that last sentence. Let it sink in.
As parents, we were insisting that this boy, who went to college last year with scholarships in hand because of his high test scores, attend class and pass the classes, if he wanted us to pay his rent.
Many teenagers or young adults might be happy if their parents paid for their college. Others might be thrilled if parents paid their rent, but apparently we went too far in agreeing to pay for both if he received good grades.
If you are trying to understand this logically, give up.

Last fall, my youngest son left for a 4-year university. A perfect storm of illness, wisdom teeth infection, a girlfriend at home, and a room full of four guys convinced him that college wasn't for him. He only passed one of four classes he took.
He moved home in January and attended a local community college. Again, only passing one of four classes. In May, before we knew he hadn't passed the classes, we let him move in with a friend. The two of them started a business, which blew up, along with the friendship in July. We never liked the roommate, so were happy to have him move home. He had talked about getting a house with three other guys, one of whom went to high school with him.
This past Saturday, we scheduled my son's classes for the fall. He has decided to take a two-year welding program. That's fine, but we don't really see him sticking with a trade job. He has never been a hands-on kind of guy, the kind who likes to get dirty or even play with Legos.
While scheduling classes, I asked him to pull up his class from this summer, and he hadn't passed it, just by a small amount, but still.
The next day, I asked my son to join me for breakfast. He didn't have time. On Monday, I again suggested we go somewhere to talk. No time.
On Tuesday, I saw him in the kitchen and attempted to bring up a conversation about the possibilities for him this fall. He could return to the 4-year university and live in an apartment with his brother while taking a few classes to explore what he wants to do.
His eyes went blank, as if he'd pulled down shades, like a character from a cartoon.
"Why do you do that?" I asked. "You aren't even listening to anything I say."
"Because you always second guess me," he said.
"When have I done that?" I asked.
"Now," he said.
And that's it. Just this one time that I thought he might not want to be a welder and knowing that he hadn't succeeded in the class he took this summer.
On Thursday, he decided to make peace and let me know that he and his friends had found a 4-bedroom house to rent.
That's when I released the bombshell that we wouldn't pay for an apartment until he passed his classes.
"So I have to live here until December?" he asked.
"Yes," I responded.
He couldn't possibly do that. Living here was impossible! He didn't even want to go to school at all.
The situation didn't improve, and when he stormed out the door to go to work, I was left wondering if he would quit school and simply move out.
It's not what I want. I want to help him succeed at college, and I think I'm doing everything that I can toward that.
He came home last night after I was in bed. No one has talked about what will happen, what his future holds.
Right now, we're all kind of waiting to see what happens.
I'm sure I broke my parents' hearts when I was his age. I was rude and entitled. I traveled to faraway cities to live a couple of times.
To adults, it seems silly that he wouldn't take the offer of college and get a degree to be whatever he wants to be.
Last night, I was talking to a student, probably in his mid 20s, who told me he is having trouble getting to class because he has to take care of his 1-year-old daughter, and the girl's mother wants nothing to do with her. We talked about how difficult it is to go to school while raising a family and working.
He told me his 17-year-old sister thought she didn't want to go to college, and he was trying to convince her to do it now.
"You know," he said, "there's some people who can't learn from watching other people. They have to make those mistakes themselves before they learn."
And that rang true for me.
In the midst of my broken heart, in the midst of standing fast to the rules we've set, in the midst of loving my son in spite of his misguided path as he grows up, I know I have to let him make his own way and hope that I'm around when he's ready to ask for guidance.

Saturday Snapshot and A More Somber Subject

Today, I would like nothing more than to merely post a photo of the leaves turning brilliant colors. I was afraid the  leaves were simply going to fall off without changing, but I was wrong.
Here are a couple of trees near my house. The leaves have turned an orangish red that looks almost pink in some lights.

But my thoughts are on a more somber subject.
This week, I found out one of my college students died. "Passed away" was the wording they used in the email I received.
Elisha (pronounced like the Biblical prophet) was in my class this summer and again this fall. (Two different classes.) He was tall and slim. He loved football and planned to try out for a spot as a running back in the National Football League, even though he didn't make the team in college.
He came to my class after two years at another college. I was surprised that his writing was full of run-on sentences. We sat together that second class and read through his writing. I taught him that he paused naturally where the sentences needed punctuation. We kept working on it throughout the semester.
He finished class early, completing all of the work for the course before the end. And he moved on to the next class in September, which I also taught.
A few weeks ago, I asked him what was going on. "You aren't getting all the work done ahead of time like last semester."
He shook his head and promised to do better.
I didn't know what was going on with Elisha. I didn't understand then that this 20-year-old guy had started hanging out with a new crowd.
I didn't know that until I saw the newspaper story.
The story began by saying Elisha's parents filed a missing person's report when he didn't come home Saturday morning. He always came home. It was not in his nature to stay out all night.
I have a son the same age as Elisha, and he had stayed out all night the weekend before when he came home from college. I texted and called him until he finally responded that he had spent the night at his friend's house.
So immediately, I felt a kinship with Elisha's parents. Here we are trying to raise our sons past this tricky phase of life when they think they're independent but they're still making some very questionable choices.
My son has gotten himself into some trouble, but his choices haden't ended him where Elisha's choices did.
Elisha was with three other guys when two of them went into a store and robbed it. A SWAT team was waiting for them, and two of the guys were killed. Elisha was one of those.
I don't know if Elisha was a robber or if he was in the car. I don't know if he had a gun.
I do know, from the news story, that he had never been in trouble before, only traffic tickets.
Yes, he did make an awful choice, and that choice ended his life.
I just wonder how many times boys make decisions that bring them to the brink of death, that allow them to slip past narrowly.
I want to reassure Elisha's parents, that I believe he was a good kid who made some bad decisions at the end. But when I picture going to the funeral, I'm afraid they might have an open casket, and I keep picturing the slim shoulders of this boy sitting in my classroom.
And then it's only a tiny step to imagine that my own boys are squeaking past bad choices. No, they aren't tempted to rob stores or commit other crimes, but they all make stupid decisions.
I don't want to dismiss what Elisha and his friends did.
I just think 20 year olds don't think very far ahead; they don't see the consequences.

Sigh....

My novel received its first negative review yesterday on Goodreads. I had been lecturing myself before this, warning myself that I needed to be ready for a negative review. I mean, everybody gets some bad reviews.
But I didn't expect it to send me into such a tailspin.
The reader gave me 3 out of 5 stars on her Goodreads review. Some of the comments she made, I could see. She wanted the main character Fia to be stronger. But, of course, Fia is stronger by the end of the book and she has to grow from being a bit of a pushover. The reviewer also wanted the French flirtation to have a "happy ever after" ending, which, to me, would have made Fia weaker. So those criticisms didn't hurt too much.
The thing that really got to me is she said the book (she read the actual paperback) had a lot of grammar and punctuation mistakes.
Being self-published, I felt like the grammar, punctuation, typos, all needed to be eradicated to increase my credibility as a writer.
Since I am an English teacher, criticism of grammar and punctuation goes straight to my heart. I plunged into despair, imagining my words going out there flawed.
I was in the middle of some promotions for my book and I simply stopped, thinking what's the point if there are grammar and punctuation errors. A gray cloud descended on my mood and rested there.
I mentioned the errors to my husband, the copy editor, and he asked whether I planned to fire him.
I texted another college teacher friend who read the book and asked if she'd seen them because I can make changes to correct them.
"I honestly don't remember a single one," my English teacher professor responded.
So, I was feeling a little better.
The reviewer mentioned that she was British so I wondered if there could be strange punctuation differences between the U.S. and UK. But I read plenty of British Lit and haven't noticed it.
I comforted myself a bit more by finding a typo on page 4 of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. If this top seller book has typos after all of its editors, I supposed I should expect them too.
I'm still feeling a bit down about my writing, but hopefully I'll bounce back eventually to publish some more flawed writing.

Mistakes

Have you ever made mistakes that haunt you?
Yesterday at the library, I saw a little girl who reminded me of a big mistake I made.
I was walking down the stairs at the library. The stairs are open to the main floor all the way down. I was on the third floor and as I reached the second floor, a little girl came marching up the stairs. She had blond shoulder-length hair, a pink sun dress and pink flipflops that flapped against her feet as she took the stairs. I smiled. She seemed determined and confident. The girl was probably 5. I expected to see her mother walking up the stairs behind her, maybe lugging a younger sibling. But the girl turned toward the 3rd floor and continued on up the stairs alone.
I didn't say anything, like "Where's your mom?" And our downtown library is not the kind of place where kids should go exploring on their own. Some shady characters take refuge in the library during the day. But the girl really looked like she knew what she was doing.
That's when I remembered that time long ago when I didn't intervene with another little blonde girl.
We were living in Michigan and had probably been friends with Sarah's family for about six months. Sarah's mom Patricia was from Arkansas. She had an adorable southern accent and that haunting ability to make every person she met feel special. In addition to her daughter Sarah, who was 5 like Grace, Patricia had a son who was a few years older. Patricia made fun of how overprotective I was. She scoffed at the booster seat I still made Grace use in the car. (In Michigan at that time, the carseat laws only required a carseat up to age one.)
We were at Shakespeare in the park, and the green, grassy hill was covered with families watching the play below. Some of the kids climbed to an open gazebo at the top of the hill. I went to check on them. There were several little kids, like Grace and Sarah, along with an older boy. Sarah was sitting on a low wall swinging her legs and she introduced me to the older boy. I don't remember the boy's name now, but I said hello to him and asked Sarah how she knew him.
"He's my friend," Sarah said.  I wasn't clear whether he was a boy she knew already or had just met him. I sent Grace down the hill and considered whether to make Sarah come down too.
I remember feeling torn. Patricia thought I was too overprotective already. Would she simply roll her eyes and allow Sarah to traipse back up the hill? I decided to walk back and tell Patricia then let her decide. I looked at the boy, figuring he wouldn't do anything stupid knowing an adult was aware of him.
Then I started back down the hill, making a beeline for Patricia.
That's when I saw Spencer and another boy throwing acorns at each other. I stopped to redirect them. It didn't take more than a few minutes to talk to the boys, but during that pause Sarah ran past me sobbing, straight to Patricia's blanket.
"Oh, no."
I went running over to the blanket. 
"There was a boy," I gasped as Sarah sobbed and hid her face against her mother.
As we pieced the story together, I remember Patricia's eyes piercing me as she said, "You sent your daughter down and you left mine?"
And, I had. I didn't think about it as a sacrifice of her, but I had protected Grace. Grace wasn't the type of kid who would have allowed a stranger to get close anyway, but Sarah was an open, welcoming child. She didn't know a stranger.
Sarah had sat on the boy's lap and he clapped a hand over her mouth then put his other hand in her panties. I don't know how Sarah got away.
Our husbands went searching for the boy but couldn't find him. Patricia took Sarah to the hospital for an examination and the police asked lots of questions.
As the adult who had seen the boy, I answered police questions and tried to come up with a photo sketch. A year or so later, as we were getting ready to move to Ohio, the police came by again with a number of photos. The boy's photo I identified was already in custody.
But little blonde girls, like the one at the library will always remind me of the time I didn't protect a little girl.

Like a Magnet

Interesting that today in the Chris Brown-Rihanna case, the judge warned that the two of them must stay 50 yards away from each other. It seems normal that the judge would tell Brown, who was arrested on Feb. 8 for hitting his then-girlfriend before the Grammies, but the judge also took the time to explain to Rihanna that it's a two- way street. She needs to stay away from him. It's as if the judge wants to save this young woman from her worst inclinations, as if she knows that we women seem to repeat our mistakes over and over.
I have a friend who is repeating her mistakes. Sometimes we women follow the pattern so closely that it's eerie. She was married to a man who treated her badly. Oh, nothing like being beaten, but belittlement was a constant state. She had children and focused on raising them. She's a great mom. Then, when she stepped into the community and out of her mother role, she was wooed with words. A man enjoyed spending time with her. A man found her attractive. He found her interesting. She didn't cheat, but she realized that life had more to offer. She knew she had to give her daughter a better role model than a woman who was cowed and subdued by a husband.
Within months of her divorce, she married another man, a man whose sole purpose in life was to make her happy. Before long, she was living with constant criticism. She couldn't do anything right. The house wasn't clean enough. Her children from the first marriage were too disrespectful. The hammer of condemnation hit over and over again. Enter another man, a man, who though far away, offers her support and admiration.
"I'm in a really good place with my life right now," she says, and believes it. Maybe that's the scary part. She thinks that's true.
I don't lecture. I was a chubby teenager and I didn't need anyone to point it out to me. I knew it. Deep down, she knows. But denial is sometimes a comforting place to rest. Maybe today is good and maybe it will stretch into weeks of good or months of good. And I'm happy for her. And when it's bad, I won't say, "I told you so." I'll want to protect her. I'll listen.
But I'll be tempted to remind her that this isn't a dress rehearsal. This is it. Our only chance and we need to live with joy while we have the chance.