Launching a space craft is difficult. I woke Sunday morning to the news that SpaceX had successfully launched the first human rated capsule into orbit. It was a mighty fete for SpaceX. It only took them 17 years.
It caused me to think about a mission that launched on January 16th, 2003, the mission of STS-107 on the Space Shuttle Columbia. At launch the team at Johnson Space Center noticed a piece of foam insulation fell off of the solid fuel booster rockets and hit the shuttle on the forward part of the left wing, potentially damaging one of the heat shield tiles.
The crew on the ground studied photos of the launch, trying to decide if a risky, unplanned space walk to inspect the damage was necessary. Without getting into the specifics of the controversy around the decision making mistakes uncovered in the aftermath, suffice it to say the spacewalk and inspection didn't occur and the Space Shuttle Columbia, tragically and some say unnecessarily, disintegrated on re-entry.
Launching a child is also difficult. Unfastening where we end and they begin becomes less theoretical and much more clear as they choose colleges, solidify their sense of self and find their people outside the house. For some the difficulty centers around letting the child go: discover who they are beyond us, find their people beyond ours and become fully separate beings, creating an independent future.
For parents of a disabled child, the difficulty centers around quite the opposite: how do I help my child discover who they are? How do I help them find their own people? How do I help them become fully separate beings, creating their independent future?
Or, can they launch? Like mission control at NASA, we wonder if we should we abort this current mission as it looks like it might be headed for disaster. We managed to check the O rings for wear, but at launch off to college a piece of foam hit the heat shield. Do we continue the mission or launch a rescue mission back to campus to bring the crew down safely?
So my wife, my partner of nearly 30 years...we sit, we debate, we argue and we worry. Will we make better decisions than they made in 2003?
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As a parent who has launched two able-bodied children and awaiting the launch of one more. I resonate with the worry and anxiety of this stage. The complexities of young adulthood in western culture (which most of the world does not understand) is real and the number of late teens in anxiety medication speaks to this.
ReplyDeleteYour complexities, added to the already existing ones would feel almost unbearable. The very fact that you are sitting in the tension and mess of t all speaks to your hope for a better outcome than the one in 2003.