“Give him up to God.”

I cannot count the preachers, ministers, pastors—pick your term—who have used this phrase during Ian’s recovery. I cannot count, in part, because at least five times every day I’m not sure what day it is; in part, because the term also comes from family and friends—each of whom is gently re-orienting me. But I don’t want to be re-oriented. I don’t want to give Ian up.

The day of the accident, Ian’s general surgeon had mercy on a frantic mom, letting my husband, daughter-in-law, and me stand in a hallway of the emergency room and watch him being moved from his trauma room to surgery. I stood rooted to my dark tile, unable to see his face for the resuscitator bag being squeezed by a person walking next to him. I heard myself whisper praying, “Lord, I give him to you.”

Actually, the thing with giving Ian up—with giving everyone I care for up—is that I’ve been doing it over and over. In Ian’s case, I gave him up each morning for an academic year in Oxford, England, leaving him in a third-grade classroom when he was only a second grader (the school was too small to have a second-grade class). When I watched his every Pop Warner football practices and games with fears of concussions for my ten-year-old. When I watched my eighteen-year-old be driven to a Navy boot camp instead of moving into a college dorm.

And so many times in between and after.

The thing with giving up is that I still feel like it’s a one-time activity. I know, though, it’s an on-going ritual that I don’t pay much attention to when things are “normal.” Yes, I worried in the previous circumstances, but I didn’t pray for Ian to live.

With Ian’s recovery, maybe a day, maybe a week later—I’m honestly not sure—when my daughter-in-law was giving his paperwork to sign, I had to remember I’d given him to her. Every day, several times each day, I give him to someone new, whether to the care of a different nurse, a respiratory tech, the on-call doctor, the family member who sits with him when I finally have to go home (because intensive care units don’t let Moms pitch tents in a back hallway. Sigh).

Some days I can sincerely, calmly pray, “I give him up, Lord, to you and those to whom it falls to tend to my son. My child.”

Most days, I still reach for the pen to sign papers. I find myself on my feet as if to help the nurse. I offer to stay for another who loves Ian when they come to be with him. This list is long. I’ll spare us both. It usually doesn’t include prayer, or at least not enough.

As I write this, I struggle to end. I don’t have actions and words to prepare myself today for giving a blessing that was never mine to grip so tightly in the first place.

The act of giving, Mother Teresa said, “cleans the heart and helps you get closer to God. You get so much back in return.”

I guess today, I’ll just use what I have and trust God’s grace for heart-cleansing–

“I give him up, Lord. My child. I give him up.”

(“Interview with Mother Teresa.” Hello, Issue 324, 1 October 1994.)