Today I was too sick to walk Pirate Boy to the bus stop. It's a difficult thing to mother when you have a serious illness. Aside from the exhaustion and pain so bad your eyelashes hurt, you don't want to be so bitchy that you eat your young. (Though with Pirate Boy, I am tempted.) So you force yourself to be as normal as possible. As I tell my doctor, I just need you to prop me up enough so I can be a mom. If I screw up THAT job, not much else matters. So I spend tremendous energy hiding how sick I am.

Not that I fool them.

Oldest Son spends a lot of time asking me how I am. Every day. Multiple times a day. He does anything I ask--from emptying the dishwasher to taking out the trash--without ever, ever, ever sighing, complaining, or asking for allowance.

And I know the girls worry, too, my sweeties.

But Pirate Boy . . . well, most of the time he frankly doesn't give a crap his mom is ill. The other kids can be screaming at him to behave because mom is sick and you don't want her to have to go back to the hospital. But damn it all, he was born to raise hell, so he continues without regard for me. Which is as it should be.

But this morning, I was literally in a fetal position on the floor, and he had to get ready on his own. I somehow managed to get up and walk him to the end of the driveway--but not all the way to the bus stop at the end of the block. It was a combination of me being unable to at that moment . . . and him not wanting me to. So he walked down there alone (now this is about three house lengths maximum). And I was ready to cry. I mean, that's it. One day they walk to the bus stop alone, and next thing you know they want to borrow the car keys (or in his case hotwire the car).  How could he walk there and not need me to hold his hand? But there he was. Waving to me from the corner.

I blew him a kiss.

He waved.

I waved.

He started jumping around like a monkey for my amusement.

I waved.

He acted like he was going to moon me.

I wagged my index finger at him.

And then I stood there because of COURSE I was going to wait to make sure he actually got ON the bus when it came. But this didn't sit well with him. He started gesturing for me to go in the house.

"GO!" he screamed.

But I stood there in my pjs.

"GO!!!!! I'm fine!"

So I did what any mother would.

I hid behind a tree.

And waited until the bus came. And THEN I went in the house.

You would think this was my first kid and not my fourth. But it doesn't get easier.

And you realize life is a series of letting go's.

With him, because he is so fiercely his own person, I suppose I want to hang on tighter. But he's having none of that.

Just go, Mom.

And for today, I was grateful for the shelter of an oak tree so I can let go but still hold on.

What letting go do you do?

Namaste.