Bhuvi's Choice

   OMG, this is hard to write about. But since i am in some kind of strange funk (not that it is strange to ME, but it is a strange thing.. this head of mine) am in a breaking heart mode. What has happened just a bit ago was a memory about my son Kanti. I did receive a letter from him earlier, from the hospital he is currently in. So, he has been on my mind, somewhere just under the surface.
    I re-lived a moment from Lake Huntington. We were taking 2 ashrams of girls into the Big Apple. After loading everyone into a large van, I climbed into the front passenger seat. Can not recall who was driving.  We were leaving the school parking lot, driving slowly up the road. Kanti, only age 5 or 6 somehow knew i was leaving.. and he came running up beside the van. I spotted him in the rear-view mirror. He was calling out "MATA! MATA!" with a huge smile on his face... running so fast and in his little saffron dhoti.  I asked that the van stop and I looked down at his smiling face and told him I would be back in a few days... He kept smiling.. but his heart was broken.. Problem is.. MINE was not broken! I was only too anxious to get away from the daily stress of gurukula/temple life...Why didn't I just get out of that damn van, take my smiling child in my arms and just spend the day with him?
    Remember "Sophie's Choice" ? Yes.. Sophie had to make a choice and she chose her son, sending her daughter to certain death. Well.... I made a choice... that while not immediately as dramatic and devastating.. may very well have resulted in one more nail in Kanti's coffin (so-to-speak)... And NOW I am feeling it! NOW my heart breaks remembering this.. remembering that I made a choice to even BE at Lake Huntington, to put him in the care of someone else, giving up MY responsibility to love , protect, guide this soul who took birth through my body.. And this was just one example of the uncountable times i chose to NOT love my baby, my son.  i beg the forgiveness (once again) of my child  (all my children) for having made choices that resulted in their suffering.. and my own suffering.
   Now he is locked up in a hospital (again) after being locked up in a jail (again) so  far away I can not visit him.. and in such a state of mind these last 15 years that he seems barely there at all. That's right... He is barely there at all.
   How did Sophie live with herself?
   Anyhow... I was hoping that by writing this down that  the pain in my heart would go away. It hasn't happened yet.  If I could, I would have my self put in a hospital for now. Even talked to C about that earlier. (that is another story).. Well.. no worries. Maybe i just need to cry.