I wonder what they will remember of this time, what feelings will have been formed, shaped, scarred, and been permanently altered because of this.

I wonder where their anger will lie, for surely there will be anger. How could there not be anger in this?  I imagine them, angst filled in college, desperately scrabbling to find all that they've lost in the arms and heart of someone else, or coldly pushing away every opportunity for love and connection as a way to protect whatever they have left.

I wonder what they think of, late in the night when they can't sleep, when they are fresh with grief from saying goodbye again, or being dissapointed by the absence of the one who only wants to be with them so badly I can taste it in every breath I take.  Do they think I don't love them? That I surely haven't tried hard enough to be with them? Do they think something horrible, something far worse than what is? Do they believe the one who tells them only his perception - watered down by fear of truth, bound too tightly by the very things he tried to escape when HE was angry and hurt and in college?  Do they ache with confusion, with guilt, with fear, with need? 

I wonder, as I lay awake in the weak light of the morning, are they brushing their teeth well enough? Did they floss? Are his nails cut? Is her hair pretty today?  Do her clothes match, do they fit her body the right way?  Did he put on something clean or just grab it off the floor?  I think about the untouched bottle of vitamin I bought them, the homeopathic immune system support they didn't take and the pneumonia he got.  I cried, for days, knowing he was sick and I wasn't there to monitor his fever, listen to his cough, entertain him when he was well enough to be bored but still to sick to go to school.

I wonder what they think of, if they think of me at all.  And I wonder in 10 years what we will talk about, what accusations will be unleashed, what sorrow will have to be waded through, what feelings of betrayal they will discover lay deep under their childhood memories... betrayal I will never be able to explain because they will have never been me, abandoned and betrayed, and so unsure of myself, so unloved and untreasured -

My kids, the ones I wonder about every moment of every day, THEY have been LOVED, they have been TREASURED.  If they ever face something like I have, God please don't let them have to do that, they will be able to stand up to it with something foundational and intrinsic... something bigger and deeper than whatever it is they go through.  And maybe then I will know, inspite of how much sorrow or anger they might harbor toward me for things they don't/can't/won't  understand, then I will know that the strength they draw on to face their adversity is strength I loved right into them. 

I wonder if there will be forgiveness, softening of hearts, acceptance?  I wonder if there will ever be pride, belief, understanding?  I wonder if there will be peace for them, peace and security and stability, if they will know it for what it is, if they will know their own truth, their own selves, their own path.

I wonder...