Gaining wisdom

Some questions

Have no answers

May 6, 2014 ~ When our son was hospitalized at our local residential treatment facility for children, we had to go through weekly parenting classes as part of the plan for his care. This was kind of funny, given he was our youngest and he was 18. I thought it was a little late for advice but I was actually a little afraid not to participate.

So we went.

What struck me most in these classes (other than there were stories told there that would just cripple you if you thought about them for too long) was that there were all these other parents - mostly moms - whose hospitalized children were much younger than my son. They had so many questions, so many doubts.....and there were so few answers.

Of course, I had all my own questions - how did we get here? What did I do wrong? What do I do now? What if he doesn't get better?

There seems to be this never-ending sequence of question marks. I think that's just part of the gig when you're dealing with mental illness. Slowly, I've come to realize that some questions have no answers. We just have to accept that and move on. But, as Rilke said, for some questions we will eventually "live into the answers". We grow, we learn, we gain wisdom - we live into the answers. I love that thought.