Forgotten

I watched a couple of old videos I found on our computer recently.

In one of them, Bergen was talking and he was stuttering. Badly.

"Do you remember Bergen stuttering a lot?" I asked my husband.

Kevin looked surprised at my memory loss and as we talked I suddenly remembered more clearly.

Yes, Bergen did have a serious stuttering problem when he was smaller. As in, relatives could not understand what he was saying. We often struggled to understand what he was saying.

We tried to encourage him to slow down in his speech, to breathe before speaking, to pause and gather his thoughts.

And then I remembered how I worried.

I jumped to a hundred different conclusions, all of them terrible. I imagined my poor son struggling to speak his whole life. I imagined his friends in junior high mocking him. I imagined limited job options. Every bad thing that could potentially happen in his life I imagined and contributed it all to the stuttering problems of his three year old brain.

Yeah. I know. That's ridiculous.

But my ridiculousness is not the point. Not really. (Or maybe it always is.)

I think the point is - something that I worried about, feared, watched over and dissected to the extreme, took care of itself. It disappeared on its own. It went away.

And I don't remember how. I don't remember when. Shoot, until my memory was jarred with video proof, I had forgotten that entire season of my son's young life.

If you had asked me last week if any of my children had ever stuttered, I think I might have said no.

Not because I am liar.

But because I forgot all about it.

And that made me think. (Of course it did.)

Of all of the things I have worried about. Stressed about. Cried over. Lost slept because of.

Of all the things that I have let consume my mind, conquer my heart, break my spirit and keep me pushed down.

Of all the wasted energy. The sleepless nights. The lonely feelings.

Of all the things that took care of themselves.

Without any effort on my part.

I am not so naive as to believe that everything I worry about will vanish on its own like Bergen's stuttering has.

But I imagine that a great deal more of my concerns will than won't.

I listen to Bergen talk every day. (Boy, do I!) There is not even a touch of a speech problem. Not a trace of a communication issue with that young lad. Not a hint. Not a sign. Not any way to know that he once struggled to complete nearly every sentence he made.

I just wonder, in two days or two months or two years from right now, what will I have forgotten? Of what pain or struggle will there be absolutely no sign?

What am I wasting my heart and my energy and my late nights worrying about right now?