Mirror for My Soul

I just got up off the floor in the hallway after an impromptu discussion about Love and Fear with my slightly inebriated son. He had teetered in an hour earlier and as he came through the door, I sensed that something was wrong and not simply because he was coming home at 5 o'clock in the morning.

He at first protested that he didn't want to talk but the tears that flowed loosened the grip that sorrow held on his tongue and he sobbed into my open arms. As we talked, as I listened and learned, I was grieved by his pain and heartache, by his heartbreaking confession that he couldn't take it anymore. But, I also witnessed his compassion and wisdom, his sophisticated understanding of what it means to love another human being.

I don't know that our conversation helped him any, it's hard to get through a cloud of alcohol. But maybe it was more for me than him, for me to hold my child in my arms, to soothe his pain and mother him once more. Or perhaps it was for me to see a thousand long-forgotten lessons come to life in him, to see myself reflected in his looking glass eyes.