All Aboard

So I'm in this weird place where I'm mothering giant babies. Boys at 18 are almost the same as the saggy diapered 3 year old.

They have the same jokes. They have the same bad ideas, like jumping off high places for fun. The only difference is they're in their LIFE now. So now the guiding is HEY. LOOK UP past your shoes. See up there, above those trees. Where are you heading. Aim higher. Aim as high as you can.

I worry about them being lost but really maybe they are supposed to be doing exactly what they're doing and the worrying should be that maybe I am lost. I am definitely lost.
In this puzzling place of older kids and me, who am I.

I spent 24 hours hanging out with Patrick at the ER with his terrible stomach pain. Nathan's best friend, he lives with us since graduation because it's too far away to keep picking him up in Alta Dena. I was so happy to not be the one in the bed I didn't mind being there, you know in case his torso was going to explode. Someone should be there. I'm the closest mom. I just sat on a spinny stool next to his bed in the ER hallway looking at all the emergencies going by, and squeezed his feet. talked. cracked my phone when I was trying to carry too much stuff. Sat and waited for tests. Listened to him dying for water. Dreaming of water. Wanting water so much everyone who passed if they were carrying a cup of water he said they have water. They have water in that cup. When they finally said he could take Tylenol with water, on his face it was how you feel on all your birthdays all at once. We watched the plain cup of warm tap water coming toward us. Cascading down the glory of Niagara Falls. It was like the most amazing invention ever, the giving of a Styrofoam cup of water. Then we waited for the room. The room was never going to come. Then after 10 hours in the hallway there was wheeling to the room by the undead nurse who never moved her face and we were in a room and the room felt like a palace. Like we were the luckiest people on earth.

I felt his fever. Felt his pain when he cramped up and we both squeezed tears. Wondered if boys caused this by not taking care of themselves or doing 8 shots of brandy at a party a month ago. Who are these boys. It's midnight. Am I wasting my time here by this bed.

But 24 hours are gone and home now the boys are lounging, Nathan after working, on the bed, and bursting into laughs about stupid shit on their phone, and when I come in to visit their lankiness, or lack of lankiness on Patrick's part, I squeeze their feet. Nathan's are sore from working 12 hours. Patrick's are sore just because feet are sore.

It wasn't a waste to love Patrick while he waited in limbo at the ER. It's not a waste to love people and believe in them. Maybe he'll go to pharmacy school or maybe he'll aim higher or maybe he'll go nowhere. He's brought Nathan entertainment and love for years. So I repay that with holding his feet when he was sick. And now I have that in my heart bank, just for me. And when I see him on the bed healthy being an idiot with Nathan we have that 24 hours of hell and cramping and water glory and I had his feet and he knows there's someone who cares about him. Maybe that might help a person look up. Either way, it makes a nice family raft. All aboard.
All souls accounted for.