When He Was All Alone...

It's all I can do to hold it together right now.  I can feel it burning in the back of my throat - a scream - or a blubbering sob that would leak snot down my face - and I want to hit somebody.  Hard.  When you trust, when you just go on blind faith, the last thing you expect is to have that broken.  Well it's broke and it ain't getting fixed.

When the after-school program runs I stay longer at work.  It's simple.  My obligation to pick up my children is post-poned by two hours.  Their obligation - those fine folks who run those fine programs - is to care for my children during this agreed upon time.  If a program is cancelled PARENTS MUST BE INFORMED!

I am beyond furious.  It breaks my heart that my son came home to an empty house - because no matter the circumstance, I have failed.  I have let down the boy who hangs all his faith on me being there.  It is NOT OKAY that he had to knock on the neighbours door and be The Abandoned One.  That he had to call his father with a lonely tale of left-behind.  That his father had to call me panicked and anxious.

And we're all losers in this.  He won't go back.  I won't send my child to a place that leaves me feeling unsafe and uninformed no matter that they run it with the best intentions.  The whole situation is inexcusable and has twisted a knot in my belly that's all tied up in mother-love.

When I hugged him, when I sucked up his hurt feelings into my embrace and felt the burn of my frustration, when he tried so hard to be brave and "no, I wasn't worried" I felt every piece of me sing with the need to protect him, to bubble-wrap him from the world and it's disappointments.  And while he let me hug him - me more upset than him - what he was probably thinking now that all was fine was, "well finally, now someone can get dinner on the table!"