By Your Side

Sirens wailing, spinning lights scatter through the blinds. What a weird dream. The sound is closer, almost right next to me. Not a dream.

Opening my eyes, I roll out of bed, cross my arms and walk over to the window. Carefully tweaking apart the slats with the tips of my fingers, not knowing what scene awaits, I peer through the glass.

One, two, three, four … police cars. More screaming sirens. Five, six, seven, eight …another four come up just behind. Finally, in total nine squad cars blocking our usually quiet suburban street. It is 2:05 am.

What is going on? It's as if I'm watching an episode of "Cops" at the end of my driveway. Only it's real. I’m nervous. We are safely ensconced in our home but I am nervous. The kids are still asleep … or they were. First the boy, then the girl, make their way into my room.

“Mommy, what’s happening? What are the lights? I see police cars.”

How do you respond when you don’t know the answers? “Just some police checking to make sure everything is OK. No worries guys.”

The sirens finally stop. I see four police officers escorting a young man to a squad car. His arms behind his back. The cops are so much bigger than he is. He gives them major attitude. They shove him onto the side of one car, and then into the backseat.

I get my kids to snuggle into my bed, but they can feel my concern in the air. “Get into the bed Mommy, things will be okay in the morning”. My boy, my protector when Daddy’s away. His sentiments echoed by my little diva.

*****

Did I ever tell you about our neighbour’s son, who blares the really loud, horrible thump and grind, hit-you-in-the-pit-of-the-stomach ”music” out of his souped-up car on their driveway? Usually perfectly timed to come on just after the bedtime books have been read? The beat is relentless into the early morning hours. Ever tell you about the time that I went over during one of these sessions, yelled over the noise (because I couldn’t hear myself think) to his mother who was standing on her driveway chatting with a friend. Shouting in frustration that I had just gotten my infant daughter and my son to sleep for school the next morning -- and did she not realize it was 9:30 on a Sunday night? We’ve thought about calling the police for noise disturbances several times over the last 8 years. But because it's been more sporadic in recent years, we’ve held off.

His parents are nice people. They gave us some BBQ lamb curry when Ian complimented the lovely aromas coming from their backyard the first summer we moved in. We received a holiday gift from them our first Christmas in the house. Granted it was obviously a re-gift (wolf clock … do we seem like wolf clock type people?) … but it’s the thought. We had trees planted in our yard, and the tractor delivering them squashed their underground sprinkler system. We offered to pay for the repairs … they said no worries. (Mind you, they didn’t share in their part of the fence, so I suppose it’s fair enough). They even invited us to the next LOUD party they had after we complained to them the first time. We couldn’t make it, but we would have if we were free. It looked like it was a blast.

This son, who my own son has noticed on the porch or driveway, often curses away on his cell phone. I myself have even heard snippets of snarling: “… the princess, yeah she gets everything she wants… and bro does nothing wrong ….”

*Faux gangsta* is what we’ve called him to ourselves. Because up until now, it’s really been just extremely loud, annoying music at inappropriate times. A man who refuses to grow up, perhaps.

After that night, perhaps not so *faux*.

Don’t even know for sure if that was him or one of his friends. I still don’t know what happened. But the one thought I had just before I finally fell back asleep? He once was a baby boy, a little boy, their little boy. My heart ached for his parents.

*****

The next morning, the birds were chirping, the sun was shining. It was back to the suburban lull. Almost as if nothing had happened.

You never know what the future holds for your children. You hope you instill in them the core values and beliefs that they can uphold themselves. To be the best that they can be.

But it's a big world out there. And try as you might, there's no way to control that world and how it can affect them. You just do your best. That's all you can really do.