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Some days I want to go back.

I want to go back to the not knowing.

I want to go back to the days of innocence, the days of guarantees.

I want to submerge myself in the here and now and not think of the tomorrows.

I want to unknow what I know, I want to unsee what I have seen, I want to erase images that are seared on my mind.

Information is a dangerous thing.

Stories and lives are powerful things to peek in on, to witness from afar.

We live in a world of information.

But some days I want to go back.

I want to go back to the not knowing.

My boy came in last night, not able to sleep.

We were always strict NOT IN MY BED parents, here in this house.............back in the days of innocence and guarantees.

Last night I said...............crawl in and we slept side by side, an arm dangling over a waist, a leg intertwined, a head curved into a shoulder...........it was a guarantee for the night.

How I want to hold him forever.

For there was a boy.  Not one I even know.  Rather one I read about in a blog and then followed on Facebook and through Google found information on.

It's been a few days now.  Days which I have followed his story, peeked in on his mom.  One mom checking in on another, anxious at the outcome.........hoping........maybe?  Wishing for something to happen that never will.......but wishing all the same.

This age of information is a tricky one.

It lead me to this story, this mom and her son but not to the ending I wanted.

He died last night.

Thirteen years old.

A soccer player.

Big smile, big cheeks.

Loved by his brother and family.

A brain tumor snatched him from this life.

Today is a day I want to go back.

Back to the not knowing, the innocence, the guarantees.

I want to go back.

Don't Miss It

So I have mentioned before...........THE JOB.

I love it.

The mom job, of course.  But also the churchy job.

I still default and tell people that I am a mom a lot of the time when they ask me what I do.

I don't know why.

I think I value more what I do with my kids than what I do with the outside world.

I think that I feel more "me" as a mom than I do as anything else.

I don't know.

But I do get to meet some amazing people as the result of my job.

People who bless me with their words, with their work, with their life.

Today I got to meet one of those people.

20 years he has worked in this world, it's a family thing.  Passed on from father to son.

He has a passion for serving people.

He has a knowledge of this area and talks of the city with care.

He realizes the need to educate people.  He said that his goal is NOT to keep on meeting with the same people over and over again, enabling them but his goal is to educate and help them and have them not rely so heavily on him, rather they will have learned to help themselves.

He told me he is on call - 24 hours a day.  That we could call him at midnight.  He might be groggy and not as coherent but that he would answer and be ready to help.

He's not taking Christmas off.

He said people are just as vulnerable in the city on Christmas day as any other day - he has a responsibility to them.

He spoke with such an earnestness and passion.

He took more time than he needed to explain things, to teach me.  He went through detail upon detail.

At one point I knew that he had something hard to say and he took such care to be kind.

I was just in awe of this guy.

It was an unexpected gift to my day.

Oh........

And who was the guy, you ask?

Randy, the Roto-Rooter guy.

I was standing there in my ancient Ugg boots, an old bulky blue bathrobe and my dirty winter coat being taken to church by my plumber.

My job?

It's flexible.

I got to stay home for a service call.

Good thing I didn't go to church that day.

I would have missed the message.