Someone I Am Now...

How many of you have children?
Did you ever think about your age or mortality before you had kids? Did you get much more sentimental and emotional about amazingly silly things? Like Disney movies?

We waited longer than most to have a child. I was near 38 when Mr. Man was born.
For 37 years, it never really dawned on me that I was 37.

I was with Precious for her C-section. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The doctor said it was the first time a father had given a play by play to the mother. I was fascinated. The first four hours of his life he spent in my hands. I wouldn't let go. The first instant our eyes met, the me I had been, disappeared, and I became the someone I am now.

*****

I will catch myself calculating my age when Mr. Man is 10, 20, 30...
"I will be 68 when he's 30". I'll say. "That's too old to have kids. What were we thinking?"

Precious will laugh at me. "He will be 30..."
"You're not 68 yet."

*****

I see the world very differently now.
Pre-child I could take the most gruesome things. I had seen blood, guts and dead bodies without so much as flinching.

Now, I can't help but think about what would happen to my son If anything bad happened to me. Or what I would do if something happened to him.

Even seeing an animal dead on the side of the road can bring me to tears. Was that animal some ones parent? Was it some ones child?

I can't watch TV. I never really noticed how many shows are about missing or exploited children. Or how many shows kill children and animals.

Last week reading Heather Anne's story about J.K. Rowling and what she is doing for children around the world. I was sobbing. Three years ago I would have thought, "Good for her", and went about my day. I haven't stopped thinking about those poor kids living in cages. I can't get that vision out of my head. I keep seeing my son in one of them. Wondering why. Wondering what happened to me. Why I would leave him there.

How can people mistreat children? How do you look at a small, fragile, innocent human being and hurt them? Physically or verbally. How do you do that?

*****

I read about a 29 year old(Sex offender)man who was posing as a 12 year old. He had fooled two convicted child molesters into believing him. They went from school to school trying to recruit kids into some fake club they started. The two older men were mad when they found out this guy wasn't a child. They were afraid people might think they were gay. It was ok that they were having sex with an under age boy, but God forbid they have sex with an adult male.

I thought about the parents at the schools where this happened. I was outraged for them. I thought about what I would do. I hoped that this man would be let go. And that the parents would get a hold of him. I thought about what I could and would do to some one who hurt my son.

On television shows when things like this happen. When the victims get hold of some one like this. A person who has committed the most horrible acts of cruelty. They always beg for mercy. As if they deserve some kind of special treatment for being cruel to others.

I would want them to beg the entire time I was making them suffer. I would want to hear them scream until the last bit of life slipped from their lips.

Three years ago I would never have thought such things.