Choosing trust

Tonight, as I write this, Celia is hurtling around the globe at 35,000 ft on her way to Germany with 17  of her classmates and three amazing chaperones. She'll be there for 10 days, visiting Berlin and staying with a family in Leipzig. I have no doubt that it will be a life-changing experience for her, stretching her imagination and opening her eyes to history, culture, and humanity in ways that only travel and the first taste of independence really can.

Needless to say, I am sitting here flipping between writing this post and obsessively watching the flight tracker and its minute-by-minute data of speed and altitude. It's got me thinking about trust, and how sometimes it feels impossible to keep trusting and yet it's the only course that is possible.

Recently Hope slipped away from her teachers at school while the kids were playing outside. She ended up at my car where I was working in the parking lot. She was never in any danger, but it definitely scared all of us. What followed was an afternoon where I think all the adults, and even Hope, were worried about whether this lapse had damaged our trust. (Hope kept saying, "I sorry, mommy." "For what, Hope?" "School." Sigh.)

In fact, I think I trust her teachers more than ever before. I witnessed how seriously they take their responsibility, how honestly they acknowledge a mistake, how quickly they address a problem and establish a new protocol to prevent something similar from happening again. And when it comes down to it, we only have two choices: to trust or to quit. I'm so relieved that they made it easy to choose trust. I don't suppose that choice will always be easy as Hope moves from preschool to big kid school to all the steps beyond.

In some ways Hope's cancer has given us the opportunity to practice that choice again and again. Once you leap into the world of cancer, you either trust or - I'm not sure what exactly - drive yourself crazy, I guess. On the one hand, I double check medications and read the labels of anything hanging on her IV pole. I watch to make sure gloved hands don't grab a doorknob before touching my kid. And I am unrestrained with the hand sanitizer. But ultimately I trust, because I have to. I leave her in the OR and trust the anesthesiologist heard me when I explained about her narrow airway and low blood pressure. I rush her to the ER with a fever or croup and trust that the oncologist on call will ensure all the treatments won't compromise her protocol. I administer her chemo nightly and trust that the pharmacists properly prepared it. I guess it's a "trust and verify" kind of situation. We do what we can do; we exercise vigilance on our end and then we take the leap of faith.

So tonight I'll do my best to trust the pilot and the mechanics, the flight crew and the air traffic controllers. And for the next 10 days, I'll trust my wise sweet daughter, her teachers and other chaperones, the school in Leipzig, and her host family.