The hole

He’s at the bottom of a hole.

Will you put down the shovel?

And take a hold of the ladder rung.

The first one is the hardest.

“The hole is deep. It doesn’t seem like there is a way out.”

Hearing of his hopelessness, oh, so hard.

But, a ray of hope. When asked, “Who is someone who could help you?”

“It would be my

Sister.”

The sister that people used to ask him about

“Is she your twin?”

The sister that he laid beside in the backseat of the van on long trips to Kentucky,  and in chorus said, “Cockadoddledoo” when they went under the bridge.

The sister that put make-up on him,

And polished his nails

And recently, shaped his bushy eyebrows.

The sister that he says is his friend.

This sister.

The one that has been depressed and anxious since he moved out.

Separating siblings is probably one of the hardest things a child can go through.

Seeing them both suffer, and not being able to do anything about it, has been like a stone around my neck, that swings and hits every part of my heart.

Watching him wander, stumble, and fall…..over and over.

Watching her slide into a pit of despair, unable to eat or sleep or laugh….for days.

Is a mother’s pain.

There is none other to compare.

I constantly remind myself of Mary’s sacrifice of her son.

The pain she endured…. I cannot even imagine.

This gives me a special kind of comfort.

She cries with me. She pulls me into her arms and says, “I know your pain.”

I trust that this sacrifice is forming a man that would otherwise never be made.

I pray.

And I know Mary, Joseph, the angels, my mother, my grandmother, Jesus, and God hear me. My family prays with me, for me, and for him.

But the important thing is, I pray.