Changed
You change his diaper again. You’ve done it countless times. You will
do it again. And again. You lovingly stroke his chest and look into those
deep
brown eyes. You wonder what he thinks. He’s not saying. Despite the
distasteful aspect of changing diapers, it harbors a few precious moments
between parent and child – one person giving care, the other receiving it.
It is a natural act of love. It imposes a moment of order on a world which
seems to make less sense every day.
You think of Iraq and gaze down at your son. There is little chance that
he will
have to face the dangers of that foreign land. But still, you worry. WMD’s
that
didn’t exist. People who were supposed to greet us with flowers but chose
roadside bombs instead. A failure in intelligence. Somewhere there
is a
“Mission Accomplished” sign that was hung up a little too early. It’s sadly
unnerving to think of all that when you look down at your precious
son.
What is in his future?
More diaper changes. That’s in his future. You will change his diaper and
tend
to his needs as long as you are able. And when your bad back, your arthritis,
or a thousand other potential maladies make it impossible for you to minister
to his needs, you will find someone else to do so. Your son will be cared
for.
He is changed. You look at him again and feel overwhelmed. There are no
words strong enough describe the way a parent loves a child. There are no
words terrible enough to describe how a parent feels when the child is
injured. You gently touch the scars where the left side of his face was.
Your finger traces the cruel path of the bullets, from cheek to neck. Your
son was lucky – saved by the finest battlefield medical technology
known to man.
His Kevlar and combat boots are a distant memory. He is changed.
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