While I’m trying not to act like the above title (10 points if you know where it’s from. 20 if you sing it!), it’s a little glum around the ol’ Flashlight house these days. We’re still trying to work our way through the stages of grief everyone talks about – and I’m stuck in the anger/despair part.

Really, why does this have to be so hard? I, like all parents, want my child to have an easier life than I have had. I want him to have the good things from my life: to grow up loving to learn, go to college because it’s just what we do, find a wonderful partner like I have, and have beautiful children that I can spoil someday. It reminds me of that line from Steel Magnolias where Julia Roberts’s character says, “I want to sit on the front porch, covered in grandchildren, and say ‘No,’ and ‘Stop that.’” I want him to skip the bad things…

Instead, his life will be immeasurably harder than mine. He will have to work harder at EVERYTHING than I had to. Everything (ok, except peeing while standing up, which I still can’t do unless in the shower… it’s OK, I’m the one who cleans the bathroom).

This changes our lives for the long term. It changes our plans for ourselves (second baby? Moving to the mountains someday?) and our plans for him (doctor? Lawyer? POTUS!?).

Interestingly enough, it doesn’t change our lives for the short term. J-man will still have the same therapies he had before, since he was already in developmental, occupational, and speech therapies. He will still attend the special preschool. He will still pull us to the back door to go out and swing every day. He will still continue to delight us with his smiles and giggles and sense of mischief. He will still be the wonderful boy we know. He will not know the difference that 3 letters can make.

We will though.