I think for the most part mom's have the same dream. Raise healthy and well rounded children and teach them to be good people. I had those same dreams and I do feel like I did a pretty good job of achieving that with Chad. Obviously with him being an only child it probably made it a bit easier to dote on him and give my full attention (ok, he might have felt smothered at times), but there were still dreams I had beyond that.
Like most parents, I wanted to make life easier for him than maybe I had (although my childhood was pretty amazing). However, being a single mom with little to no support (financially), it made it difficult for me to give him material things like most of his friends had. Yes, he had to buy his own vehicles, pay his own insurance, pay for his own cell phone bill (once he began working), and buy his own gas to run around. I wish I could have given him those things in a way and in another way, I do feel like this built his character and taught him the appreciation of hard work and the value of money. There is still a piece of me that wishes I could have done more in that aspect of raising him, but you can't go back and change history and I'm truly ok with the way things played out.
One of my dreams did come true. I had always wanted a daughter and since I knew Chad was the only child I would have that made it a tad hard for me to fulfill that dream, but besides my bonus daughters from Tebo, Chad gave me a daughter when he married Katie. I was thrilled. I thought, ok, this will be my chance to see what it's like to have a daughter. It was wonderful feeling that way, however, they moved so quickly to CA and then after a year he was gone that it as a fleeting moment, so it seemed. I am fortunate enough to still have Tebo's daughters (my bonus daughters) and I wouldn't trade that for anything. There is a huge part of me that still wishes I had that mother/daughter relationship with Katie, but she needs to move forward in her life and have a very happy and blessed future and I am afraid I would hold her back from that and I would never want to do that. I'm tickled that I was able to experience that and watch my son get married. There are many moms/parents that don't get that chance and I'm certainly blessed that I did.
I had dreams of him becoming a police officer one day and I know he would have been great at that. He joined the Marine Corps and I couldn't have been more proud and more scared at the same time. Once he made it through his first deployment in Iraq I thought, ok, we only have one more to go and then he will be completed with his contract and can move back to AR and start working as a police officer or whatever he chose to do and at some point begin having babies. I dreamed of being in CA when he arrived home from Afghanistan and handing him his birthday gift of an autographed photo of Peyton Manning and just celebrating the fact that he would not have to deploy again and would be home very soon where I just knew he would be safer. When the news came on Dec. 1, 2010 that he would not be coming home alive those dreams were crushed. I would never have the chance to have those same dreams again. There could be no substitutes or filling those with other dreams as they just would not be the same.
I don't really know what my dreams are today. I know I have hopes and aspirations for my bonus kids with Tebo and their lives and the same for the bonus boys with the Marine Corps and school buddies of Chad's that I will hopefully be able to enjoy and watch from the sidelines. I will be blessed to have those, but they won't be the same as it being Chad.
I don't really have anywhere speicific I was going with this post today. I just haven't been able to clear my head lately and at night when I do close my eyes I see things and think of things that just do not allow my mind to rest. Maybe just getting some of this in black and white will help this mind rest at some point.
I'm blessed beyond words in life so don't get me wrong there. I have an amazing husband, bonus kids, family, and friends that help me get through each and every day as gracefully as I possibly can. There are total strangers at times that support and encourage me many times over and that does warm my heart, but there is such a hole in my heart that will never be filled and there are days that it is harder to work around that hole than others. I guess this month has been one of those months where that is just harder to do than others.
Simply wonderful sis.
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