What a time, what a
time! The last two weeks have been a
rollercoaster ride. Started off great,
plummeted downhill with celerity, and rebounded with amazing surprises and
blessings. To put it down plainly, my
youngest son is a fiery little hellion, full of intelligence, wit, and
opinions, and he has been giving me a serious run for the money in the fight
for maintaining my faculties. Such
behavior has created major consternation in my soul, and I have been brooding
and questioning where I have gone wrong with my youngest. I was starting to feel like I was having a
“Steve Perry Save my Son” moment. I
chuckle now, but one morning I had even started looking up wilderness camps for
wayward children. (I figured, “You want
to be a Joe Hardrock? Let me show you
some real ones, lol.”) Yes, I went
there.
The opening quote is
from a meme making the rounds on fb recently, one that I posted on my wall. Lately, I have been thinking about those
words as I deal with my youngest son, my sweet, rebellious, smart, maleficent,
funny man (at least in his mind), the mighty Jalen Christopher Bunting. As he stands on the precipice of turning 13
this summer, it seems as though he is fighting growing up, tooth and nail. This school year has been a rough one for
him, as he has often used his powers for evil and not for good, choosing to be
rebellious and hard over being smart and knowledge seeking. His grades are good overall, but could be
even better. He could easily be in the
National Jr. Honor Society, but he doesn’t want to be. We are working on him about why, if given the
opportunity, it is a good thing to participate.
As I reviewed his performance on the tests given at school to monitor
levels of student learning during the year, I got a little upset at how he has
chosen to travel under the radar, so to speak, in his school performance. All of his scores, in math, reading, and
science, are all consistently in the above average to high range. In a lot of ways Jalen is just like me—smart,
opinionated, creative, musical and artistic.
He gets mad easily and shoots off his mouth way too much, just like
me. But the way that he rebels against
his God-given smarts really gets my goat, and is radically different from the
way I am, and the way that we are trying to raise him to be the best young man he
can be.
The Mother’s Day joy
and love I got from him seemed to dissipate quickly as the week began. Monday morning began with grumbling, fussing,
and moving slowly to get out of the house to the bus stop. Monday evening got
even worse with homework hassles.
Tuesday and Wednesday were not that much better, and by Thursday he was
as “foul as maggoty stew”, full of that snarly, surly teenaged angst that makes
a mom want to eat her young. I had spent
a large part of the week worrying over him, praying over him, wondering why he
seems so hell bent on straying away from all of his talents and interests, his
natural smarts and creativity, and gravitating towards this unengaged, angry,
isolationist always wanting to be hidden away in his room, sullen, silent, and
basically on an island unto himself. No,
no, no! All alarms and whistles were
going off in my mind—what is going on?
We are losing our child. Even
Duke had begun to express concern because Jalen had even become mum during
their father-son talks, which occur all of the time.
By that Thursday evening, amidst all of the torrential rain and thunder
that created huge afternoon traffic snarls, toppled mighty oaks, and caused
many creeks to overflow their banks, our prayers were answered. Duke braved the wicked elements to pick him
up from his second day of after school detention (yes, he had even started to
act ugly at school), and as the floodgates opened up that afternoon, so did
Jalen. I don’t know what they discussed,
but when he got home he apologized for his behavior, at home and in
school. He said that he knew better than
to call the girl who rudely cut in front of him in the lunch line a “gardening
tool”, and that he was going to do better.
His dad gave him his phone back under the absolute condition that if
there is a phone call, email, or any contact from school that is negative, then
the phone is gone—forever. No more
second chances. I relented, even though
the phone was supposed to be gone until summer for the detention incident.
But I can happily say that since then and through the writing of this blog today, Jalen has been a changed man. He has returned to the sweet, playful, creative pre-teen that we know and love. He is being responsible for getting his work done without incessant nagging from me, and is not talking back and mumbling ugly, inaudible thoughts under his breath. He is doing his chores without complaint and looking forward to the return of his allowance (no chores, no pay). He and I are even talking a little bit more, and there are a lot more “thank yous” than complaints. He still has his moments, but who doesn’t? I can deal with this Jalen, and I count this as a blessing. Not a surprise mind you, because as parents, we are trying to raise and nurture a positive, happy child who will grow up to be a thoughtful, productive, positive contributor to this world, and it is our expectation that he will be reasonably good. I am very thankful for the blessing.
Out of the blue, over the past weekend, I got the biggest thrill and surprise, one that I never imagined or had even thought of, except in passing, for a very long time. I was scrolling my fb feed and saw a post on my wall from LaShaun Bellamy, one of my line sisters from Duke! Talk about a shock. As my life unfolded and I left Duke University for NC State at the end of my sophomore year, and after pledging the burning sands of Delta land, I lost touch with that part of my life while forging ahead along the new path on which my life had decided to journey. Sometimes, in talking with my husband about some of my good old college days and antics, I have talked about my life at Duke and reminisced about my pledging days, but pretty much those times are just a part of my memory bank, a part of my life’s résumé. After accepting her friend request, I also have found and reconnected with almost all members of our spring ’83 line (in line order): Sharon Gramby-Sobukwe, Lavern Jones, Songhi Scott, Melvia Wallace, Shirley Lawson, and Sheila Anderson. I brought up the rear as #9, and I hope to hear in the near future from #1 in the line, Freda Vandiver. LaShaun was the median point in our line, #5.
I have been floating in a very happy place and thinking on some of the marvelous times that I had with these awesome women. I have already started thinking about how I can be a part of a reunion with folks as they come through NC or hopefully with everyone next year in 2015, as ideas, plans, and talking about possible get-togethers and reunions have already started. I even heard from and am now friends with one of my best buddies at Duke, Spurgeon James. Now I am wondering about and am going to start looking for some of the rest of the crew—Madeline Taylor, Anise Jackson, Marilyn Sanders, Nadina Henley, and Ramona Jester. I have been thinking about the times when we lived in Hanes Hall, Trent Hall, and Central Campus Apartments, and how we helped each other and stuck together through good times and rough times. We were good friends, and I am sorry that I lost contact for all of these years, but I am looking forward to fun times yet to be had in this stage of our lives.
Finding my friends through fb I count as both a beautiful surprise and a bountiful blessing, that the bond we share and the friendships we made can never be broken. Truly life is beautiful, through the good times, and also in those times when life throws you curve balls and you miss your mark. Despite all, at the end of every raging storm is a beautiful rainbow, a promise of better times. The song in my heart is Walter Hawkins’, “Be Grateful”, and I am grateful—for life, for friendship, for love.
“God has not promised me, sunshine. That’s not the way it’s goin’ to be. But a little rain, mixed with God’s sunshine, a little pain, makes me appreciate the good times…” I’m grateful, and I’m happy. Thank you, Lord, for both.
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