It was apparent that Lauren had made significant progress during the months she lived away from our home. But old habits die hard and it wasn't long before 'the boyfriend' returned as one of those old habits. Now back to her old stomping grounds, we found that she was still presenting challenges to our most heart-felt and wise advice. It was increasingly clear that her time at the Academy had ended too quickly.
Time was drawing near for the expected due date of our 'unordered' grandchild. Due on the 20th of April, I prepared for my travel to Chicago to be there when our little one was ready to make his entrance.
Happy to celebrate our twenty-sixth Wedding Anniversary prior to my departure, I was in for an unexpected surprise.
She began to cry as the words left her mouth: "I'm pregnant". Lauren stood in front of me with a pained look on her face as she found the courage to give me the news. 'Incredulous' doesn't accurately convey my emotion; it was more akin to the 'dropping of the other shoe'. With the years of emotional challenge and low self-esteem our youngest child had endured, an unplanned pregnancy was a distressing possibility we could not logically discount. She had previously had a scare which proved to be a false alarm. Hopeful that such a close call would ensure an extra measure of caution and responsibility, I now had to accept the reality that this child had chosen to ignore the warning.
The unconditional love exemplified by my sweet little Italian Mama always bolstered and informed my own actions in my role as a mother. Patiently loving, yet always holding us to accountability for our choices, my Mama taught me how to, by example, assure my children of my love while still conveying heart-felt disappointment. Her disappointment spoke as much to the consequences we would endure as to the turmoil such unwise choices would incur for the whole family.
And so it was, on our twenty-sixth Wedding Anniversary, that I alone (for the moment) was made aware that we once again were faced with the heart-breaking news that yet another daughter would fit the description of 'unwed mother'. Looking to the heavens I just had to ask, "Do you think we're gonna be really good at this grandparenting thing, or what!" How did we end up in this situation?!
We tried our best as parents to be open, loving, and appropriately honest with our daughters as they grew. They were always assured that there was no question they could not ask, nor any problem they could not come to us with. There was no subject that was 'out of bounds' regardless of how touchy it might seem. Simultaneously, we tried our very best to exemplify the Christian values we wished to instill. Our attempts as parents were concerted to monitor their choice of friends while careful to be as non-judgmental about the young people whose differing values we had to counteract and persuade our daughters against. But it is only personal experience which can bring home the true reality of the struggles parents encounter against the power of society and the peer group. Heap a heavy dose of chemical imbalance with the low self-esteem which it is so capable of producing and Lauren's circumstance was not so much of a mystery.
Another piece of the puzzle turned right side up.
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