Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 July 2010 08:42:20
You probably won't get the reason my blog title today made me smile, seeing as you probably have never read one of my favourite poems: "Not a very cheerful song, I'm afraid", but at least it made me smile.
I thought I ought to record, if only for my own benefit, the events of yesterday, especially as going back over my blogs for last year has proved beneficial in remembering key moments.
Yesterday was a long, hot, and mentally and emotionally exhausting day. I had sort of expected that my greater knowledge of what to expect and the fact that nothing would be very different afterwards than it was before, would make it easier to cope with going to court to hear the judge pronounce sentence on my son for his second offence. I was wrong. I think, like last time, it is a moment which is indelibly written on my heart and my memory... together with a sense of disbelief that this could all be about that lovely boy who used to snuggle by my side to listen to stories, to dangle upside down on the climbing frame trusting me to catch him if he fell, who loved to be outdoors making dens, riding his bike, walking, sailing... and just being together.
The waiting is the hardest. We arrived early, only to find that he had been listed for earlier than we'd been told. Only five minutes to go, and the Youth Offending Team (my help and stay) had not yet arrived. I didn't know where to go or what to do. Then we discovered that five different cases were listed for the same time in the same court - it was only a "not before" time, not a specific time. In fact, as it turned out, he didn't even arrive at court until over an hour later than that. But that didn't stop my panic as the moments passed and I was still facing going in there alone, or maybe even not realising it was happening at all. I could have hugged the YOT when they finally arrived.
The courtroom was bigger this time. I was relieved I could sit in the room as this was the first court I'd been in where there was actually a public gallery too. It'd have been immensely hard sitting up there alone, a sheet of toughened glass separating me from the events down below. It was tough listening to the accounts, though, of how thoroughly mixed up my eldest son is and how this affects his behaviour in so destructive a manner. He will never come home.
I am left feeling such a jumble of feelings. Anger, sorrow, guilt. Relief, resignation, frustratrion. Loss, lack of hope, hope. Disbelief, certainty, longing. And a certain degree of numbness. (Not to mention a hefty chunk of exhaustion). Somebody I was talking to over a coffee the other day suddenly said "I didn't know you had two sons, I thought you had just the one". I don't know how many sons I have.