The "C" Word

It’s 4:30 in the morning, and I’m worrying about Amish carthorses. 

I didn’t get to the mistreated carthorses directly. Before that came the lost Chihuahua found running up the road, skinny and huge eyed, probably confused as hell. 

Before that was the report that my child has been getting some C’s at school. My guilt at not paying more attention lately to his homework or studying looms large. What kind of educator am I; like the shoemaker whose kids have holes in their shoes?

But today, he is leaving for Costa Rica, a ten-day trip without me, and yesterday, the woman cutting his hair, who comes from Korea, was almost weeping as she told me about the ferry that sank, full of school kids on a traditional Korean class trip. Hundreds of children, from the same classes at the same school, from the same town, now simply gone. My heart groans at the horror of this. It is so ominous to hear it, the evening before he leaves with his classmates.

Children, classmates, Costa Rica, C’s, Chihuahua, carthorses…I don’t have to be an analyst to see the connections of all these C words.  My own C word, the word people used to whisper, hangs there, a conundrum in the midst of it all.

For me, my 56 years would suffice, and I know my dear husband would manage if he lost me, just as I did when I lost my spouse. But because of my son, only 14, letting this take me is non-negotiable, not until he is grown. That is, somehow, a comfort.