Children

I've been thinking a lot about these little people who live in my house.

The other night-late-I took my garbage and recycling out to the curb for pickup early the next morning. As I was walking back to the house I heard a loud, angry voice cutting through the early morning silence. My next door neighbor was screaming obscenities at somebody in his house at 1 am. He was screaming loud enough that I could clearly make out the F-bomb sprinkled liberally in the tirade.

This man is mentally unstable on the best of days, and everybody on the street knows to steer clear of him, and how to know when it's time to call the police to come calm him down. This man is also married, with 3 children ranging in age from about 2 to early teen. The child I know the most is a girl a year or 2 older than Jeremy. They play together outside frequently, and she has been to our house a few times. The other two children-the older and younger-are boys. The wife is always gone, doing who-knows-what, leaving the mentally unstable man home with the children most days.

I don't know a lot about what goes on in their house, but I know that children's protective services have been called several times, along with the local police department making approximately quarterly visits to the home. Legally, it seems that nobody is able to do anything to help this family in crisis.

Standing on my front porch that night listening to him scream, I thought about his children. I imagined them huddled together in one bed, listening to their parents fling vicious words at top volume. I imagined those children trying desperately to sleep through the violent anger, through the dismal existence they lead. I hurt for them. I included them in my prayers, and I have thought of them almost nonstop since that night.

In turn, I've also thought a lot about my children. I know I complain a lot-about my life, and how hard it is being a widowed parent. When I came back in the house and got ready to crawl into bed that night, I woke Kadon up and asked him to come sleep in my bed. I curled around his sleeping form and stroked his curls. I listened to his breath go in and out of his lungs, and relished how his legs fit perfectly in the bend between my knees and my waist. I smelled his breath; the vestiges of bath odors clinging to his hair; the warmth of his soft cheek.

I thought about my children, and how much I adore them. For all the things that are wrong in our household, I know my children will never huddle together in bed at night, wondering when the screaming will stop. Instead, they will huddle in bed with me-fighting for covers and pillow space. We will tickle, and giggle, and fight over who gets to hold the popcorn bowl.

It is so incredible that I get to be their mother. It occurred to me the other day that for at least the next few years (and hopefully far beyond that!) I get the distinction of being their very favorite person in the world. My children are lucky to be surrounded by a great group of people-they have friends, aunts, cousins, and grandparents who adore them fully-but I am the favorite. Given the option between me and anybody else in the world, they will choose me every single time.

The parents out there know how heady this is.

I love that when they're hurt, they reach for me. I love that when they color a pretty picture at daycare or make a valentine at school, they bring it to me. I love when something is unfair in the world, they look to me to fix it.

I am their favorite.

It's intoxicating.

And I ache for the children who don't get to have a favorite, who have nobody to make valentines for and nobody to snuggle with them at night. I wish I could fix things for them, and show them a way out of the darkness that they're living in. I don't like feeling helpless.