Cheeky Sweetie

If I had known all I know now when I sat in my doctor’s exam room as she informed me that I was, at 16 years old, pregnant, I would have done a lot of things differently.

I may have decided I couldn’t handle it, and I may have given him up for adoption.  But it’s doubtful.  I’m a fighter.  And I rise to the challenge.  And he was MY responsibility.

I may have been more assertive with the agencies that helped me locate his father and prove paternity, because if his father had been involved from an earlier age, perhaps he would have had more time to build a bond with him. Perhaps he would have had more time to make an impact and instill values.

I may have been less involved with my friends so he had a more stable, traditional upbringing.  I was never the teen mom who dumped her kid off…but perhaps being raised by a bunch of teenagers because my friends were always over wasn’t the best idea, either.  As the years went by, it seems that I slid somehow into more of a big sister role than a mother role.

I may have been more firm with my parents about my role as his parent.  I needed their help, but watching them consistently take authority over me seems to have only reinforced the idea that I was more of a peer than a parent.

I definitely would have stopped his father from driving to work that day.

I definitely would have made sure he didn’t have his wife and three younger children with him.

I definitely would have somehow stopped his life from being tragically cut short.

Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.  But I can’t help but think that if his father had been here these past seven years, he would have taught Christian what he needs to know about being a man.  I can’t help but think his father would have been able to get through to him, and guide him in the ways a father can that an inexperienced mother struggling with all I’ve struggled with in those seven years can’t, or at least, didn’t.  And I can’t help but think that even if none of that mattered, and Christian *still* became as troubled as he is, his father would be the kind of support and help that I feel my loved ones *trying* to extend…but that he needs, and I need, from his dad.

We needs prayers.  The shadows are finding him again.  I’m losing him again.