Nothing At All To Do with Coffee or Tea…

O..k. I need a bit of rant space. This is it…

Several years ago Marc and I met a young man in a coffee shop. He was on fire to join the military and couldn’t wait until he was 18 and could do so. He talked to us a lot about it, knowing that Marc and I had been military. His face lit up, his eyes shone, and he was animated.

There was only one problem. Mama.  Mama didn’t want Sonny-Boy to join the military. She couldn’t bear the thought of him in danger, away from home…and so she constantly told him why he couldn’t, shouldn’t go off to boot camp.

Every month or so he would tell us how he was getting ready to go in…only it never happened. A few days ago I happened to see him, now in his 20s, in another coffee shop. No talk of the military. No animation. His eyes were dull, his face was without expression.

Moms (and dads!) kids need to be who they are. They need to grow and mature and eventually move away and start their own lives, make their own mistakes, and dream their own dreams. We pour into them to prepare them to be adults.

This mom may feel that she has spared her son from the danger and possible death of the military but at the same time she has effectively killed him herself. His life will not ever be what it could have been..He will be full of the what ifs….and the sad thing is…if he had a destiny to fulfill? He is settling for mediocrity now. Minimum wage. Mediocre job. Average life. Ho Hum.

I hope and pray he breaks out. It is heart-rending to have children grow up and leave home…I know from experience. And having a son in the military who has been in Iraq twice, lives in Japan  until 2013 AND hasn’t been home since June 08? I understand. I do.

But I raised him to be his own person, and I am proud of the man he is. It is just not right for me to stand in the way of someone else’s dreams. It is criminal.

Don’t really know why I am writing this. The young man haunts me, I suppose, because I am so sad for him. I grew up with a dad whose cheer for me was “Go for it!”…I have a husband and family that say “Go for it!” and to have those things taken away at such a young age ..just sad.

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