Because it’s a new school year, both Ying and Luk Chaai have had emergency preparedness drills at school. Luk Chaai explained all of the components of a fire drill to me in the spirit of grand adventure. “When the bell rings, you walk, not run,” he admonished me. “You stand on the line and wait for your name to be called,” he explained. You couldn’t help but admire his enthusiasm in the face of pending doom.
Ying was late coming out of school one day. We had a drill, her teacher explained. My initial reaction was to be glad that she too was having the complete school experience. Then the potential seriousness of the situation dawned on me. What exactly did you tell her to do, I asked the teachers. For days I was nagged by ‘what ifs’ and ‘how cans.’
Should there ever be more than a drill for either child, it goes without saying that I’d want to be there. I’d also like a Marine, a fire fighter and an officer in SWAT gear standing next to me, regardless of the situation. Wouldn’t we all?
But life doesn’t work that way. My presence is not a shield. There have been bumps and bangs whether I stood two feet from a child or two cities over. Children have acted rudely before my very eyes and when my attention was elsewhere. It’s the nature of life.
As a nation, we grapple with difficult questions of being the world’s policeman; as a parent I must acknowledge that I’m not.
We can prepare and pray and plan, and then we must release. Otherwise we bind ourselves and our children with the silken strands of the dark unknown.
Instead I chose to believe that when help is needed, someone will be there.
It’s two o'clock Christmas morning and food poisoning strikes. Someone was there.
Shortly after we came home with Ying, we spent the day with friends. Sensing our exhaustion, they insist on pushing the stroller. Someone was there.
After a long thankless day, I phone a friend. Someone is there.
The car alarm went off and the neighbors called to check. (Some little people got a hold of their father’s keys.) Someone was there.
My child was in an orphanage and I wasn’t. Yet, someone was there.
Psychiatrists tell us that the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. I chose to believe that someone will be there when they need to be, because someone has always been there.
Someone is always there.
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