Someone To Watch Over Them

Adri always worried about her boys and what would happen to them if she was gone. She asked me, begged me, to watch over them and make sure they were okay if anything ever happened to her.

I told her that I'd have a lot less sway and say if she was no longer around, that whatever value she found in me as a role model and someone to lean on or as an anchor point in her boys' lives would be gone if she wasn't there.

There were times that she wanted to know if she could specify that I would be the one to bring them up if something happened to her, and I told her it didn't work that way, and for good reason, usually.

I told her that if something had ever happened to her mom when she was little I would hope that no one, no extended family, would have tried to take her away from me.

I told her she had to make such decisions and changes if that's what she truly wanted now while she was here and had some control if she was that worried about their lives in a future world that didn't include her. That she had to fix the now and not hope that I could somehow make sure the boys lived their best lives. Whatever worried her about her boys' lives without her would not magically go away because she made her intentions known prior.

So I told her to please stick around, please help yourself and let me and others help you as well. If you're worried about them then don't let them fall to a lesser fate if you're no longer here, because trust me, I will be powerless without her. I'll only be able to do so much, that there will be a gatekeeper to my relationship with the boys.

And I was right.