Monday, October 3, 2011

Big City vs Small Town...

Today I went to visit a house, this house is on a back road made of broken up concert. It is an old ranch style home and sits on a beautiful lot of land, maybe an acre or so of land. When we drove up to the house we parked all the way up the driveway and walked around the back of the home and came in an open screen door. I love this house, It made me want to make sweet tea and sit out back under the covered porch and watch Hailey and Christian play football. All of this is neither here nor there. I came to this house to pay my respect to a family who has just lost their son.

I came to work in Alvin TX, about a month ago and although I’ve been meaning to write about the drastic difference between working here and working in the city, I’m writing about it now from a completely different point of view. Soon after working here I learned that my co-worker lost her daughter a little over a year ago, she was a young and beautiful and left behind two even more beautiful children for their grandmother to take care of. Ever since then I’ve tried and tried to wrap my head around the thought of losing my son and I can’t even bear it. I can’t imagine what something like that would feel like.

I work at the “Bus Barn” for the Alvin ISD, as a payroll clerk, and here there are about 200 people who work here and live in this small town and they all know each other in some way shape or form. There is gossip galore and secrets that most know about anyway. But here in this small town very little differs from the “Big City”, my eyes have been open and the idea that you could somehow move away from everything bad and move your family into a good neighborhood, or a better city, is lost.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of love here too. Our break room have filled up with every kind of home cooked and baked yummy you can imagine this morning for the grieving family. Everyone has come together and in the house I went to visit, there were ladies that although not close friends of their co-worked who has lost her son, are there busy in her kitchen making sure that the family will come home to find that everything has been taken care of. It’s amazing.

What has me as a mom even more taken back though is the cause. I don’t feel as though I purposely moved, trying to escape the bad things that can hurt a family. Things just worked out that way. I do feel better that my kids will not be a part of the same things that I was when I was younger. Apparently there is no way around some of it. Since here I’ve learned of two deaths by overdose and a young man whose drug (alcohol) wreaked havoc on him internally causing a very horrible and painful death. My heart goes out to these mommas, having to watch as your baby that you have known better than he or she knows their self and slowly feel as though you don’t know them at all. I watch Christian on the field and see that kid fill of life and future and happiness, I see him there and can imagine everything good that can come his way. I try not to think of all the bad that can cut him short. I pray for those things to keep their distance. AND I talk to him all the time about these things. I talk to him about his future, his life, his youth, his dreams, his faith, his friends, his relationships, his peers, drugs, sex.  I don't know the answer to it all but I'm here and we talk and I learn and get to know him everyday and all the ways that he changes and grows and I pray that I'm doing something right.

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