My Son my Hero

A mother who carries a child, gives birth, and watches as that child grows into adult hood spends many hours planning what the future of that child will be. In our minds, our hearts we see success and hope to stand back proud of the people we have influenced and presented to the world as our greatest accomplishment.

I am no different from the innumerable mothers who came before me, or the ones who I am in sisterhood with today, or the ones who will follow tomorrow. I remember my son as a child whose life I was entrusted to keep safe.

It is our job as parents to protect our children and even when they have grown and moved into lives that are separate from our own, we continue to feel the need to protect them from all harm. For me the role has changed and I must look upon my child with different eyes, torn between the man who is the soldier protecting me and all that need his protection, and the child who came to me when he was afraid of imaginary monsters. The monsters he battles now are not imaginary and I am of no use to him in his battle. A helpless feeling overwhelmed me when I realized that fact. I sit and worry trying not to because he reassures me of his safety. The time he spends in that foreign country keeps me imprisoned and freedom seems impossible. I spend my days waiting for letters, phone calls, emails that may or may not come.

I wonder what horrors he faces to during the course of his day while he is there. How will it change him? Will I know him as I once did when he returns? If he returns? I cry inside for the child he was, the teen he was, the man he was before he was a soldier.

He tells me it will all be okay. That this is something that has to be done, and that it is something he wants to do. He points out that young people die on our streets every day often for no reason, that should he die in battle at least there was a reason, and it is something he believes in. The reason for him is this, to keep the battle away from his homeland.

It breaks my heart that people who are not there speak out against him and what he is doing. They do not know the positive impact he and others like him are having on the civilians over there. They only hear the harsh side of war through the media.

He has said that the people he has met there need him and all the others who are there. They are friendly and respectful of the troops and are grateful for their presence. I suppose that should be some comfort to me. I know that these people look at him as a hero and what he is doing honors me. He is no longer my son he is also my hero and always will be.