Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Hard Way

When I tell our story...my husband and mine, I like to say we were fearless as we went out into the world and just refused to fail.  But maybe we were just plain stupid.  After all, we did do it the hard way.  Less than twelve hours after graduating high school, I became Mrs. Dan Wyant.  And less than than twenty-four hours after that, we packed up our meager possessions and headed to another state to start a new life together.  We had no jobs to go to but had no doubt we'd find them.  We had no home to call our own, but we weren't afraid to make one.  We had no plan for how to build our future...just two hearts that were determined to make it happen.

By the time I was 21, my twin sons' age now, I was three years married, the mother of two, living with my husband in a town far enough way from our families that we really felt like we were on our own.  We had a little house and a car with a $78 a month payment.  We were standing on our own feet and going to to bed at night with a tired we had earned.  Life was good, and we were happy.

But for me to pretend our lives have always been smooth as silk or perfectly peachy would be as crazy as you believing it.  There's nothing particularly 'easy' about being a grown up, about being married or about being a parent. Putting all those hats on at once only multiplies the challenges.

Let's face it, the on-the-job training program for life is difficult and sometimes painful.  The only thing higher than the hurdles are the stakes.  We've made more than our fair share of poor choices over the years.  We've taken turns being selfish and foolish.  We've made messes and left scars.  We've fallen short and missed the mark from time to time.  Maybe there is no 'easy way' when it comes to this life.

But the mother in me can't help but want to spare my sons all the pains and pitfalls this life promises.  I don't want them to be like we were...doing it the hard way.  I don't want them to struggle or fall short or have to trade their dreams for harsh realities.  I don't want them to settle or sell out.  I don't want them to have to do without or simply make do.  As their mother, all I ever wanted to do was give them....well, everything.  

So it's good for me, that as it turns out, to do so...to have given them everything...would honesty have been to rob them, in whole or part, of the beauty that is their own  life's journey.  Because as I look back at my own life, it was in the struggles and in the times of want and in the arena of the unknown that I did my best growing.  It was when we had so little that we gained an appreciation for much.  It was when we were without that we were often the richest.  It was when we had nothing but each other that we first realized we had everything that mattered.  And who we are today and where we are today would not be nearly so sweet without the insights gained by lives well lived.

So while there was a time when it was my job to provide a safe haven and construct a careful cocoon around the little boys I was so blessed to have call me 'mommy', that time has passed.  And boys no more, my sons...grown men...move away from this place to make their own way.  They do so, for better or worse, for richer or poorer...with women who love them and who walk beside them through this world.

They will discover for themselves all the things marriage and family and real life hold.  They will find their own strengths and learn to help each other through in times of weakness.   They will decide what's worth fighting for and what's simply not worth anything at all.  They will build their own future, burn their bridges, break their own ground.  They will make their own plans, dream their own dreams and pursue their own happiness.  They will find it out...figure it out...and sometimes even fight it out.  But Lord willing, they will endure and overcome it all together.  

So while my sons may not have done everything the way I would have chosen for them...the easy way...I'm sure my mom and dad would say the same about me.  But I know I wouldn't change my life even if I could...and that's what I hope for my sons to be able to say themselves one day.  When they too are old and gray, I want them to look back and say they wouldn't have had it any other way.