I Worry and I Grieve, So I Blog

I worry.  I’m a worrier.  I used to worry about my children.  I still do but not as much.

They’re all almost grown and I don’t see them much. Their careers have taken them far and wide. My youngest is 18 and ready to fly the coop in a couple of weeks – off to Wyoming.  I still worry about him but it’s becoming less and less.

Now I worry about my littles.

Over this past, horrible week, I’ve felt some relief knowing that my youngest child will soon be exiting the walls of high school, forever.  He’s done.  That chapter is finished.   No more worries about sending him off to high school and then seeing a news flash that there’s a shooter there.  I won’t have to worry about that anymore.

Wait a minute.  My oldest little is turning 3 in a few weeks.  That means that within a two years, he’ll enter public school. I’m sure his parents are already worrying about that.  

But grandmas REALLY worry.  Maybe it’s because we have less control over situations with our grandchildren.  We can’t rescue them like we could our own children.  We can’t make important decisions for them.

Grandmas just watch from the sidelines – and hope and pray that they will be safe.  That’s all we’ve got.

My littles are going to grow up in a world much crazier than the world this momma is about to leave behind.  That makes me worry.

I don’t have answers to the world’s problems.  I don’t hate guns.  Some of my children are very responsible gun owners.  They are good people who have learned about guns, know how to use them and keep their guns safely secured with a number of systems I don’t understand.  If they want guns, they should have guns.

My diet of donuts and chocolate and french fries is more likely to kill me than a gun will.

Still, I worry.  I worry about crazy people who go into schools, or malls, or stadiums, or hotel rooms –  that want to hurt my littles.  Maybe I worry because I was involved in a terrorist event a while back – The Boston Marathon Bombing.  I’ve seen what evil can do.  I was there.  I was running. Oh – and there were NO guns.

I’m tired of hearing the fighting and bickering – with no solution.  “It’s Trumps fault”.  “It’s the NRA’s fault”. “It’s the FBI’s fault”.

Whatever, people.  I don’t care whose “fault” it is.  Unless you have a real solution – keep your DAMN mouth shut and quit pointing fingers.

I don’t know the answer.  I don’t have a solution.  This is not an easy problem to solve.  Parents and siblings and friends are grieving.  Grandparents are grieving.  The blaming and pointing fingers aren’t helping them in their grief.

Can’t we all just get along and quit being so nasty?  No wonder people are crazy enough to shoot children.  We have such great role models of decency and respect –  in our faces – everyday (that was sarcasm).  Try a little kindness.  Be a little more thoughtful.

This country needs a momma-grandma-bear to put everyone in time-out. Then maybe she can stop worrying.