I just wish it would all go away...

Usually I don't want to change my life.  Usually, I am okay with where decisions, chance, fate has placed me.  Today is the exception.  Today is the one day where if I could do it over I would.  Today is the day that if I could go back in time and send Kyle to Belize instead of Appalachia, I would fork over the money in an instant.  I would say, "$1500?  No problem.  Here you go.  Here is the money.  Go change the world for somebody."

But I can't.

I can't.

I can't.

And we are here where we are, grieving today for decisions made over a year ago to go to Appalachia because it was cheaper.  Closer.  Safer, for God's sake, than Central America.

And here we are, Kyle dreaming about drowning, still, forever and ever changed.  A boy is dead.  His parents bereft.  A community remains in shock.  The world is without a star.  My heart is broken over and over again with imagining how it was, how it felt, what it must have been like for my son, my sweet, sensitive boy to watch somebody go under, thinking he was kidding, doing nothing to help, and then realizing it wasn't a joke.  Feeling like it is his fault that this boy is dead, that if he had moved sooner or dove deeper or yelled louder that things would have changed.

Kyle says that if his not going to Appalachia would mean Finoy would still be alive that he would gladly not have gone to Appalachia.  But if Finoy would have died anyway, Kyle says he's glad he was there because it has made him the person he is today.

That may be so.  Kyle may feel like that, but I do not.  I cannot.  I wish with all of me that I would have given Kyle the money to go to Belize.  I wish I could wipe this event from his life.  That I could change history and his fate would be different.

If Kyle had not been there, then maybe Finoy wouldn't have been swimming across Kinniconick Creek at the exact moment that the current had the ability to pull him under.  Maybe he would still be alive, had gone to Spain, graduated top of his class at school, headed to college and was on his way to becoming the Jesuit priest he had planned on being.  His parents would be happily living their lives watching their children grow, marry, make lives for themselves, better the world.

If Kyle had not been there, maybe Kyle wouldn't be playing guitar in his band or volunteering so much or planning on going into counseling someday.   He might be working at Paul's instead of lifeguarding. He might still be playing football.  I would not be taking him out today to do random acts of kindness in memory of a boy he hardly knew who died before his eyes in a creek full of people having fun.

If Kyle had not been there, there would be a lot fewer tears shed and a lot less sleepless nights.  Life would have been different.  Easier?  Who knows, but I could do without this weight pressing down on me, on Kyle, at odd times.  I could do without watching him disappear into his video games to escape his memories.  I could do without worrying so much about what might happen to one of my kids when they leave the house.  I could do without the guilt that I feel because my child is alive and someone else's is dead and I am so, so glad that the grieving parent is not me.  I could do without the shame at the waves of relief that I felt the moment that I heard, "One of the kids on the mission trip drowned today.  Thankfully all the boys from St. X are okay..."  Thank you, God, that it wasn't my child who died!

Yes, I could do without all of this.  I would happily pay that extra $1000 to make this all go away.  I'd pay $2000, $5000, $10,000...Hell, how much do you want?  How much?  Because if I could make it go away I would.