My Wish

The Boy has a medium chance of being able to return home in March, assuming his therapy progresses. Our family therapy has to progress as well, which means Jack and I are on the hook for the Boy to come home. March is an ambitious goal whereas May is more realistic. The Boy's school has scheduled breaks, so he doesn't get to come home when he wants to, or when we want.

Family therapy is a large part of the remaining work. The Boy's Christmas visit in Montana went better than the fall one so #progress. The visit was very nice, so nice in fact that I might be slipping into thinking that he is fine, even though I know that is not fully the case. The Boy's stable and confident behavior, thoughts and mood need to get baked in before they can let him back out into the real world. The fact that he is doing well makes me miss him even more. Is that ironic? I don't think so. It was easy to be glad he was in treatment when he was falling apart because I knew I couldn't take care of him. Now? I don't know. And I am scared to find out.

So I cry, but I am not sure what kind of tears they are. Relief that he is getting better? Sadness that he is gone and not going to Ski Bus tonight? 

Maybe it is just love, and love sometimes makes us cry. As I was crying, I had a daydream about a fifteen years from now, when the Boy has his own child, and how I will cry, thinking that this imaginary future day might never have come if he hadn't gotten help.

My wish for the Boy

Is that he learns to laugh

At himself 

and

At the world.

My wish for the Boy

Is that is he isn't afraid to cry and holler

When the world is unfair and unjust

and

When he is stricken with grief,

For grief is the ashes of a love

That once burned bright.

My wish for the Boy

Is that he learns to love

and 

Be loved in return.

I wish the same for me, too.