Fear

I know in the past I have written about my struggles with fear. The past couple of days I've had my heart tested a couple more times.

Im not really sure why events usually take place in groups of two or three. Just as you start to feel like you are getting your head out of the water another wave comes rushing in. That has been the past 48 hours for me.

Emily's birthday started out just as it should. Morning group hugs, spankings and the ripping open of wraping paper as she poured into her gifts. Her 'party' isn't quite over since tonight I will be invaded by 8 or so 10 year old girls for Em's first official sleepover. The thought "what was I thinking" has occured to me over and over. But back to Wednesday. The day went as it should until that evening. I heard water dripping.

The sound of water dripping does things to my head that I can't begin to explain. I suppose the only person who can understand the fear that grips my heart would be my father since he has been here to help me through each instance in the past three years dealing with the issues that have come up. Water was dripping and I couldn't figure out where. I decided to be 'grown' up and even though it was dark and I absoultely hate crawling into the under house crawl space I would venture out there and see what I could find. Right after opening the door and looking around I could see damage. Water damage, and I think in that instant I saw it times 10. I instantly called my father and walked him through what it was I was hearing and what it was I saw. I had been pretty calm until as I started explaining to him what I saw I melted. My poor father didn't see it coming (or maybe he did) but he calmly walked me through a way of getting me past that 'emotional nuclear meltdown' into seeing what the problem was specificially. Getting away from the emergency of the situation as I saw it, to looking at it from a critical 'is this really an emergency'? Im not really sure how he did it, but the long and the short of it is this, I had a problem I saw it as the house was falling apart but my father calmly got me to see that it was simply just another problem. The problem was this, the valve in the shower when turned to the shower causes water to drip out of the pipe. Not a seriously horrible problem, but a problem. One that could be 10 times worse. My father pointed out it could simply be that a pipe needs to be rethreaded....I laughed at him and said, "dad I won't believe its that simple. Nothing with this house is ever that simple, Ill think we have to rip apart the bathroom wall, and in the small chance we don't I wont be disappointed if we do." Around midnight Wednesday I finally fell aspleep.

Thursday morning came and went quickly. I rushed the kids to school and started getting things done around here. Around 2 I get a call from Andrew. Very unusual, he is still in school and by the time I find my cell phone he's hung up. A few minutes later I get another call. "Mom, the school is being evacuated!" My hearts already been put through a meat grinder the day before, I wasn't prepared for this. "Andrew, I quickly say, what's going on?" " Mom there is a fire and they are evacuating the building." Click. OK, my son isn't one for many words, and he isn't one to hang up on me, so I know something is going on and he isn't in control of things right now. It's hard when faced with the realization as a parent you can't be in complete control of your children. It's hard enough when they get to the age and start having their own opinions, but when something like this takes place and you simply can't be there to assist them, it's difficult at best. A few minutes later I call one of the ladies I carpool with and arrange to have Jess picked up from the other school so I can head out to pick up the boys. I get a quick call from the other mom to find out her son is out of the building already and they are getting the kids organized and moved over to a Walgreens. I don't want to overwhelm my son, I could hear the fear in his voice when I talked to him, so I calmly head on over to Escondido.

As I near the area the fire becomes very apparent, I can even see the flames leaping in the air on the freeway drive over that direction. I get another call finally from Andrew that he is safely over at Walgreens and where am I? I can smile about that now, because I know at that moment all he wanted to see was me and for me to get him out of the area. It took time driving through all the traffic in the area to avoid the fire zone and get to where the kids were. The fire started to look like a tornado at one point and jumped into another building. The moment I got the kids into the car my heart was 'safe' again. The fire had been just a few yards down the road at a huge new condominium complex. The principal at this small high school made great decisions that day in getting the kids out of the school. My son was still shaking when I picked him up. The boys all seemed to relax teasing about which new greasy taco stand was going to be the next building to go up in flames. I got to be mom in a way that day in a way I can't really describe. I think hero in some ways might be the closest explanation to what Im trying to say. My son needed me, and I was there. When we need each other, it's a wonderful feeling to know that you can count on those you need to be there.