Far as I know, no one’s trying to kill us.
Hopefully no one wants to.
No one wants to think about it, selecting executors of a trust, guardians – replacement parents – so their rockstar will be alright in the event of you-know-what. And it’s possible if you’re superstitious you will feel even more uncomfortable about the whole biz. I know certain perfectly well educated, intelligent, beloved ageds some of whom when we recently discovered hadn’t even bought terminal illness insurance (the thought of illness and incapacity so terrified them) responded casually along the lines of “Well, I thought I would just sell off one of my houses if it came to that.”
And then there are the dropped hints.
“Don’t you think this one is a pretty good home, it’s got the whole resort look going on…..”
“Fountains! The sound of all that water!”
“Chess tables?”
“I really should set aside money for (my spoilt mutts) in a separate account for this place – all the dogs get walked twice a day…..”
(That was my A-Ha moment for this one time when I’d met a fairly old lady walking a young working dog and filed it away for future reference. This lady told me somewhere in Hong Kong you could apply to be the owner of the puppies that would eventually be trained in the police force etc – for the first 1 ½ or 2 years of the pup’s life, you give them a home just like you would any other pet, and then when they’re old enough you give them up to be drafted in the police force etc.
In other words, you can still get your dog fix without worrying what happens to the dog if/when you croak.)
Ok I do narrate certain dropped hints affectionately, but it’s also vaguely suspicious. Of the You Didn’t Actually Write Down Somewhere What You Want Done In The Event (God Forbid) You Are Unable to Tell Us, Did You? variety.
Scary that it is to think about when you’re young-er, I think it gets a lot worse when you’re old. Er. Which would be one reason why Kings broached this shortly after we got married – yes, when we were like, 27. We started out of college with nothing but huge study loans and then home mortgages to pay off, remember? (Fine, he did.)
Ah, those days. That first condo we bought. Changi Rise in Simei, near East Coast Park Singapore. 1,032 square feet, 99 year lease hold. The point was if we put what 25 year old us paid in rental expense + CPF toward servicing mortgage payments, there was zero effect on our cashflow between renting and buying. And at the end of the day instead of simply rental going out every month, we would have a solid asset for resale. I went to sleep at night with the floor plans by my bed, lovingly dreaming of how I would furnish it. We would drive by to watch the construction works on weekends.
We never lived a day in it because Kings got a job in Hong Kong. Ah, well. We got out with a tiny profit, but please don’t mention Changi Rise to me again. Tell you why someday.
Anyway. The worst thing about choosing prospective surrogate parents for Rockstar in the event the Unthinkable, Unmentionable should happen to us, is how coldly logical you have to be about something you are obviously extremely emotionally invested in. Crap. But here goes.
Who would best replace me and Kings as parents to Rockstar?
Who might even do a better job?
And then when I’m starting down the road of Who (And Their Family) Would Be Best Capable Of Loving An Adopted Child Like Their Own –
Suddenly I remember the promise we made when Rockstar turned 1. Our church practices Baby Dedications (as opposed to say, cradle baptisms) and around the time of Rockstar’s 1st birthday, Kings and I had committed to pointing Rockstar to the Lord as we raised him. And our choices become less difficult.
Because the Lord giveth, and He taketh away, and whether you are Christian or not, the mindset of not clinging too much, not idolizing something, gives you a much clearer head.
One of life’s biggest ironies is that it’s when you “care too much” that it totally messes with your head, making you unable to make the best decisions, the very thing you want most to do for your child.
Still. It was terrifying to go to that place where I might not get to be Rockstar’s parent anymore. To where someone else would get to wake up to that first cuddle of the morning. Someone else would know what his breath smells like. I don’t want that. I only just discovered so much about Rockstar myself. I’m discovering new things about him every day.
Remembering that accepting Him means having faith that His way is best even if I don’t understand it at the time (wasn’t that how I ended up unexpectedly pregnant, in the wake of walking away from what I initially thought was a plump job offer in the first place?), I think I Can Sell That.
Even if I’m terrified. I don’t remember any mountains relocating into oceans just from my speaking to them. One of the authors of Our Daily Bread observed that. And that’s where I find the quote from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, former pastor of London’s Westminster Chapel.
“…………. Faith does not look at the difficulties………. at itself or the person exercising it. …….The measure of a man’s faith, always, is ultimately the measure of his knowledge of God……. And it is the prayers of such a man that are answered.”
Dear Father. Don’t let anything happen to us or Rockstar. Please.
Yet may Your will be done.
It’s interesting that our faith was what taught us the ultimate lesson in accepting, in recognizing our child as his own person. With his own choices to make. His own achievements to be proud of.
Because it would have to be the Rockstar’s choice to accept Jesus as his savior someday, it’s not something we can do for him. No matter how much we want him to.
I may use a religious example, but don’t all us parents want our children to be certain things? Yet it was from our faith that we learnt not to push.
You can lead a horse to water. Provide the water in various colorful beakers and sippy cups with Lightning McQueen and Thomas The Train on them. But. You cannot. Make the horse drink.
All we can do is answer Rockstar’s questions and be the people we hope he will be. Supposedly we’re raising this whole other person, but really we are the ones, as much as Rockstar, growing up along the way. Even as the Lord uses the child He gave us to shape us, give us the strength to be the people we always wanted to be.
