will it kill me?

I often wonder if all my worry for E-Niner will one day kill me? I have a string of worries that tie up in a tight, knotted ball that I have nothing else to do but keep winding up all the worry. Will it one day do me in?

(It won’t, by the way — even if it sometimes feels like it. I read some study recently that concluded that parents who raise kids with special needs don’t die any earlier or later than parents raising typical kids.)

When we adopted E-Niner, we said that God brought us to him. E-Niner was and is a gift from God. But I also have begun to wonder that if E-Niner is the gift, are his special needs our burden? Our cross to bear?

One good thing about having a family member “in the business,” is that we can do Home Mass, which is what we did for Christmas this year. Joe’s father is an episcopal priest, and instead of trying to coordinate the kids and the church schedule and the cooking and the napping (very important on holidays!), we decided to do Mass around our dining room table.

Instead of doing a homily, for Home Mass we all discuss what the readings mean to us and how they touch our lives individually. I can’t recall my train of thought now — and this was definitely an inside thought — but at one time I do remember saying to myself that being dead, in the Lord’s care, will one day feel quite the blessing. My earthly burdens will be no more. And for a moment, I felt lighter.

Even if there were no life after death (an option I think we’re all forced to at least consider), I thought, the emptiness would still feel lighter than what exists now.

These thoughts have scared me. I’ve never considered death like this. I usually fight off the idea of it. But I’ve started kind of embracing it now or accepting it in a new way.

I don’t feel depressed or suicidal, so please don’t jump to that conclusion. But I do feel kind of at peace with the idea. More than I have in my life. My desire to deny the inevitable has dwindled to nearly nothing, and it just kind of feels weird.

Part of life is coming to terms with our own eventual demise, and somehow, this Christmas Eve, I gained a little more peace where that is concerned.