Jody Serey’s Reflection

Where This Day Leads

I remember somebody commenting to me as we watched my three very tiny children play, “Little people, little problems.” I didn’t correct him, as my three kids were already survivors of bureaucracy, the foster care system, and a tangle of early traumas that we hoped were behind them as we adopted them. But my neighbor’s words stayed with me for decades.

However, I now I would add, “Big people, big problems.”

If they all had lived, my three children would now be facing mid-life together. However, one son died unexpectedly — and quite blamelessly — as he slept, of a massive intracranial bleed. He was 38 years old. When Nate left this earth, his younger brother Joe was in the midst of a prolonged period of intense mental health crisis and seemingly intractable alienation from the entire rest of the family. He was a military veteran, suffered from PTSD, and had lost himself entirely in a negative existence. It took a period of years, and a series of events,  before the tentative communication with him began again — which it has, and for which I am both relieved and grateful.

Along the way, he joined a religious group that I had only truly encountered in the form of the nice lady at the door who brought us little magazines for about 20 years. I sometimes looked through them. I mostly did not. However, this Utah community took in my son, addressed his addictions and his behavior issues, and stuck with him through prolonged therapies and treatments.

At some point, I talked to Fr. Dale about what had happened to the boy he had known since infancy, and what religion he had embraced. Fr. Dale said, “Well, their theology is very different. Don’t spend too much time trying to understand that. What you need to keep in mind is that they are very, very good people.  They are peaceful, they are totally pacifistic, and they take care of their own, and anybody else who needs it. They don’t observe our holidays, birthdays, and a lot of other things, including the government. They have been exempt from military service since World War I. However, I think he will be fine. ”

Today, Joe is married to a truly lovely woman from Colombia who adores him, and who has helped him re-establish his ties to his family. He is sober, positive, still engaged in ongoing counseling and therapy, and his life is useful and good.

Where this day leads, I am not sure and have no real way of predicting. However, I no longer look at the ceiling at 3:00 a.m. and pray that the upcoming morning doesn’t reveal that I have two sons gone from this earth. I have also acquired as pure gift a daughter-in-law who is an example of the power of love and commitment. I prayed without ceasing, even if it was without real certainty. But this lovely woman seems to have been some kind of answer, even if she isn’t one I would have known to pray for.

Our third child, Laura, has never wavered. Hard-working, plain-spoken, and beautiful — she is the one who first made me a mother. And, she has endured loss and grief with a rare ability to keep going without staggering. Her husband Chase still marvels at her strength to carry on. I hope that she and I share that trait, even if we don’t share DNA.

“Big people, big problems?” Perhaps. But old mother, old prayers — prayers as old as the long ago eyes that watched the child leave the circle around the fire and venture into the shadows.