“She died a thousand deaths,” is one of my mother’s quotes on parenting. That, along with “This too shall pass.” And “It’s not the stuff you worry about, but the stuff you never even saw coming.” And lastly, “I’m glad I’m not raising kids nowadays.” Thanks, Mom.

But Mom’s right about the thousand deaths – every time something bad or unexpected  happens to your child – injury, fever, teased or bullied, acne, weight. What’s hard is to witness the sadness or the pain or the fear, and not to be able to fix it right away or fix it at all. My first-born in the NICU with jaundice and a low grade infection: picture this robust, orange-colored baby boy with “shades” on to protect his eyes from the artificial sunlight that would cure him of the jaundice. To leave a new baby in the hospital for a week, while you fret, worry and recover yourself – it’s not easy. Or, my second son with his febrile convulsions – his eyes rolling back, his back arching – possessed, it seemed, not himself. Thankfully, only once, and not for long.  The report from the doctor that one of my boys looked like a candidate for early adolescence – and would stop growing early, before he reached full height.  That was the worry that never came to pass, i.e., they don’t know everything. The things you read about in the paper: SARS, Lyme disease, swine flu, diabetes or childhood cancer. The foods that are bad; the toxins in the air; the plastics that erode.  Scary, unrelenting and not for the faint of heart. And the temptations of drugs and drinking — the price of being social, ways to handle stress – how will they handle these?

All these things: to watch your child go under anesthesia; to see him knocked down or knocked out in sports; to lose him at the mall; to leave him off at camp; to imagine him roaming the halls of the high school; leaving for a cross-country trip with his college roommate.  It’s enough to make your heart pound. 

All those things, and learning to drive, too.

Riding in the car with a teen and a newly minted permit is exciting, to say the least, nerve-wracking at times, potentially quite dangerous.  I can truly say that I have envisioned the crash, the wreck, the veering off the side of the road quite clearly in my mind as I have died those thousand deaths.  But I keep the veneer of calm. I remember that he needs the skills to grow and learn.  I try to keep to myself my own irrational driving fears, born of other insecurities, and a life-time of observation of less admirable qualities of human nature.  My voice drones on – notice this, notice that – as my feet work invisible pedals, and my hand brushes the passenger side door, keeping the shrubs and mailboxes away. 

He’s fine. Really, he’s doing great.  But I know the thousand unique driving situations that he may encounter and not be prepared for.  And I experience the thousand deaths – the end of both of us – so that he may pull into the Dunkin Donut’s drive-thru and and order iced-coffee with the greatest of joy.