Life can be a bully.

Life punched me in the face this week. Dazed and confused, I looked around wondering what happened, when life sucker punched me in the gut. I fell to the ground in agony where finally ended the beating with a swift and painful kick to the teeth.

I got a phone call this week from my son’s school. They told me something that no parent should ever have to hear. Determined to remain calm, I sat down with my little guy and asked him what happened. The story he told me made me want to vomit, it made me want to scream, gnash my teeth and punch a wall. It made me want to hug my son tightly while I sobbed and never let him go. I did none of these things. Well I did hug him, I told him that I loved him, I let him play Mario Kart on the Wii and I went to my room and cried where he wouldn’t see me.

The rest of the week was spent getting emergency visits to therapists, talking to different individuals at his school including his teacher, the director and several aides.

My son will be fine – the therapist seems to think that this will not come back to haunt him later in life. I however am pretty sure that I am permanently scarred from my beating. I will not have the blind sense of safety and trust that I had before. Last night my husband, son and I went out to dinner. I had a large glass of wine (maybe it was two glasses). When I put my son to bed he asked if I would snuggle with him. We fell asleep snuggled up on his twin bed. When I woke up at 11, I knew that I needed to get to my own bed or suffer the consequences of a terrible night’s sleep and a sore back in the morning but I stayed there a few minutes more because I didn’t want to let him go.

Oh – did I mention that two family members are in the hospital (one here and one in Australia)? And that another family member is deciding whether or not to get radiation for his tongue cancer now that they’ve cut his tongue out completely? And that my husband just got notice that his company is cutting every employee’s salary by 10%? And that I found out on Friday that I will spend most of April away from home on business?

It’s a beautiful sunny day this morning so my husband, son and I will get outside, take a hike in the foothills and take lots of deep breaths. We are a team of three and no one is going to fuck with us.