Will is eighteen now and my mom - the original reason I even started writing any of this down - is gone. Her death more than two years ago has left a dark hole that I would never have imagined. The world changed so much when she died. Reading back over some of what I wrote years ago I can't believe this is all the same life I'm still living.
We are in second semester Senior Year for Will and the college decisions come in and break my heart in ways I never imagined they would. It's not my journey or my story but I've walked alongside Will for over eighteen years now and the rejections feel personal. It's not so much that I'm worried about Will and his future - Will has so much to offer the world - it's that it all feels so unfair and so random. Which brings me back to my mom.
My mom used to tell me a lot of things. "You're not made of sugar, you won't melt," she'd say when it was raining and I had to walk to school and "Nobody gave you a certificate when you were born and told you that life was going to be fair," when I complained about things. Nobody promised that life would be fair but it's something I've obviously struggled with for most of my life.
I understand it in the Christian sense too. I didn't deserve to be born in a first world country. I didn't deserve the kind of privilege I didn't even know I was benefitting from. Kids who get cancer or who lose parents don't "deserve" that either. Life is not fair.
