What Works

My current family crisis, which reaches a climax of sorts just hours from now, has taught me a lot.

About myself. About my strengths, and frailties. About my family, about love. About my wife, whom I love more than ever. About my son, whom I admire now, not just as a father, but as a man whose maturity is hard-won, one with his own stories to tell.

About community, about belonging. About blogging. About you.

Mainly it's taught me about what works. What works for me. What eases pain, what calms my nerves, what helps me keep panic at bay.

What works for me, when I get nervous, are talking, writing and walking. Talking about my problems relieves my pain. Writing about them helps put them in perspective. (Coca-Cola, when I'm real nervous and can't eat, can be a blessing. Music, fitting my mood, playing in the background.)

Walking, which is the exercise my father favored before I knew him, the exercise my son favors now, may work best of all.

Once this is over I have made some vows. I will get help for my own condition, help I have put off by hiding from the world behind a typewriter. I will become more involved in the community, with neighborhood groups, perhaps with my son's church. I will become an advocate, hoping to give others some benefit from lessons hard-won.

But first, let's take a walk.

 

When I walk, my mind races. I tell myself stories. I imagine possible outcomes, and think of how I might feel then.

In the present case, my dream takes place just hours from now. My son has either been acquitted of hitting his teacher, or his sentence has been reduced, the threat of expulsion for this honor student removed.

I imagine how I will feel then. I imagine hugging my wife, shaking hands with my son's attorney, about my son's broad smile, about the feeling of inner peace, and exhaustion, that will come over me then, the kind I feel after a long bike ride, the kind a soldier feels on first sight of home.

I also have nightmares on my walk. The tribunal lacks sympathy. The evidence, much of which I have not been shown so far, is overwhelming. My son becomes the Great White Defendant. An example must be made, lest lesser students also stray. Banishment, and either his ADHD isn't recognized or isn't given proper weight. What happens then to his Chinese lessons, his Arabic lessons, his shot at college? I see myself 20 years from now, my son still living at home, perhaps working at a menial job, without a high school diploma, with no hope of making a positive difference in the world.

These dreams and nightmares share space in my head as I walk. I know they also share space in the head of my wife, and while he is loathe to admit it, my son's head as well. It's like the excitement Law & Order tries to create at the end of some shows, when the writers decide to end on a verdict, and you know the D.A. might lose, because the defendant is rich, his politics popular, her strategy beguiling, or a reasonable doubt remains. 

How does the jury find, guilty or not guilty? Your heart goes to your throat, even though it's fiction.

This isn't. This nightmare has been with me for nearly 2 weeks now. I have done everything possible to get ready for what follows this post. We have prepared a case, we have prepared arguments for mitigation, prepared for what might follow, we have sought to steel ourselves.

But there's no real hope of the last, and every moment which goes by my own panic builds, my fingers tap the keys with increased urgency.

It really is Halloween.

Trick or treat?

I'll let you know.

UPDATE: Still no word. The case was argued, it was taken up by the authorities, we're supposed to be able to call this afternoon for a verdict. Halloween goes into overtime.