when girlie peas hurt

As Momma Peas, we deal with throw up, diarrhea, sniffles, cuts, bruises. We even deal with bullying, name-calling, and mean girls. So much we can deal with. So much we can handle. So much we take on with our kids. We fight their battles; we cry their tears. When they hurt; we hurt.

There is a family hurting more than I can even imagine. They are the Kelley family. I don't know them and they don't know me. But, I can't get them off my mind.

Jordan Kelley was a 15 year old honor student and athlete that altered my family's life, maybe forever. Last Saturday night, he chose to take his own life. He jumped off a balcony at hotel in downtown Dallas. He landed on the second floor, shattering his body, and glass.

The shattered glass hit my daughter. As one onlooker put it, "...we heard something crash and a chunk of glass fell almost hitting a young woman, about to go onto the escalators to the second floor...." That young woman was *my* young woman.

Anne was at the hotel that night for a friend's birthday. A posh downtown hotel stay, dessert at Wolfgang Puck's 360 degree, spinning, tower restaurant and a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art to see Jean Paul Gaultier's fashion collection; it should have been a 13th birthday fit for a pea princess.

I can't "fix" this and it sucks. I feel helpless and mad and sad and...hurt. Hurt for my baby. I should feel more hurt for the life that was lost, for the boy that felt he had no way out of his problems and for the family he left in shambles. But, like him, I am selfish. I want my baby to be okay. I don't want to see her in pain. I don't know how this story ends. I don't know when she will be "healed."

I am learning as I go. I am having to trust that God will heal in His time. I have no patience; so I am learning.

Pray for peace in the souls affected. Pray for comfort and strength. Pray that these peas who witnessed this suicide will witness God's love to others. Pray that something good rises from the shattered glass. Just pray for your babies. And tell them you love them right this second.