So there we are down at Oakland PD, at the vehicle impoundment office at the crack of 8, and we find out that the car we are trying to get out--the same one we've been trying to get out for two days--has a 30 day hold.  So Monday at 9 am, we have a hearing.  I'm not sure who we will be talking to.  I'm not sure who or what the hearing is about.  The car?  The person who tried to get the car (that would be me, the only licensed driver in fifty states)? 

But as we were there, a woman walked up to the counter to tell the tale of her dead husband, his impounded car, and her marriage.  I started to care not about my son's issues but this woman's.  How did the husband die?  In the car?  During a crime?  She had her marriage certificate in a pristine white envelope, but she did not have a death certificate.  Was he killed in the midst of a robbery?  Was he shot dead at a traffic light?

Who knows.  We were off, back on Seventh, trying to ignore the delicious smells of Mexican food at eight thirty in the morning.  Tamales, anyone?

When I think about King Lear, I think about this line:  "Better thou/Hadst not been born that not t' please me/better."

I was not really pleased to have missed my writing morning, my walk with an old friend, a second cup of of jo, to be instead on a second visit to 7th and Broadway during commute time.  But would I write off my son, my beloved oldest son because of it.? No inheritance (such as it is) for you.

I have made many parenting mistakes, and I continue onward with them.  Likely, I should have said, "This is yours to figure out."

But how many more times do I have in my short life to help?  How much more love will I be able to give him, this man/boy person who still wants to see me?  We are given finite relationship moments, finite times to see and be with one another.  If my belief system holds out, this is flipping it, and I wouldn't' change a thing, walking twice in one week in a part of town I prefer to drive through.  I would always say, "Yes, I will come with you.  Yes, I will help you.  Yes, I will make sure I can do what I can."

I could be the woman at the window with her marriage and death certificates, trying to find what was once hers.  Now, I have what is "mine," my son, complaining and whining.  My son.

Children are not here to love us.  No, that's not it.  We are here to love them.  Love goes backward, down, toward them.  We've been loved (mostly) already that way.  We need to say yes to what is asked.  We need to give the land, the value, the property to what is coming toward us.  Not to what comes back at us.  The real treasure is within us, the parents, giving all we can.

Jessica