Brain dead and bullet proof

What is it about the teen years?  Is there something in a book somewhere that says that teenagers are suppose to be brain dead and bullet proof?  I have often wondered why it is they think they can get away with some of the things they try!  Is there any rhyme or reason for the things they do?  Is there a reason that they have to follow even the stupidist of friends down the path that leads to something that can cost them their lives.

I am the proud mom of six, count them six kids.  Five boys and a girl.  Now over the years each and everyone of they has done something that, as a mother, has made me proud(sarcasm).  It has been everything to rolling trucks down hills sideways to getting arrested for stupid petty things.  I have over the years though, decided that if they get arrested, they are going to spend the night if not longer in the county clink.  The fear of sitting in jail, was usually not as scarey as calling MOM and telling me where they were. 

Now my kids may tell you that they are scared of me.  This is something I pride myself on.  It is not to say that they could not come to me for just about anything, but a little unadulterated fear does not hurt anyone, especially if it keeps them from doing something industrial strength stupid, like this last incident that has happened. 

I got a phone call from someone that I had not heard from in a long time, my ex-daughter-in-law.  I was given information that sent a wave of panic into my soul, the likes of nothing that had ever happened to me before.  You see in our family, we have had the angels watching over us.  Not a child has been lost, to date.  This was not going to be the first.  

The phone call came with the following information.  Your grandson is in ICU, intubated.  Now to a lay person, this means the person is sick and in a place where they can be taken care of,  because they are really sick.  To a nurse, it is a whole nother story.  ICU and intubated means the child is so sick he is not able to breath on his own, has had a trauma so bad that the brain is not working, or even worse, the child may die if not treated quickly. 

My mind began to reel.  All the terror came pouring out.  To have to sit and wait for information is one of the worst things to have happen to anyone.   Ok more information.  Drugs, alcohol, found unresponsive in room.  Now there was more information available.  In a way it was good, but then the more information a nurse has, the more things they can imagine can go wrong.  A bit of good information, he was extubated.  The foley is being removed.  Good information to have.  Now to find out what the next step is.  More tests, and then home if all the results are good.  He was lucky, THIS TIME.  I hope there is no NEXT TIME.

The phone call this morning was not one that was pleasant.  I was given the number to the hospital.  Funny, he did not seem happy to hear my voice.  I tried to encourage the truth, but kept running into inconsistencies throughout the conversations.  We spoke for a long time, me explaining things to him and him trying to justify the things he did.  It is hard to get angry with the person you thought might die.  The anger I have now is towards the people who were part of this fool hardy idea that led him to this point. 

You try for most of your life to instill moral codes in your children so they can pass them on to their children.  Then something like this happens and all you do is blame yourself for the things you did not do.

I am here to tell you that, no matter how hard you try to make your children into people who do the right things, there will always be others out there leading them in the opposite direction.  You can only do what you can do.  You give it all you have and then sit back and hope for the best.