Relief

Yesterday my son passed a couple of milestones in justice. He had two court appearances that could have carried significant time in jail. The first appearance in the morning he had been advised by his attorney chances were likely he would receive 90 days in the county jail. I don't know what was done or said, maybe the the judge did see a different young man standing before him. The sentence wound up being 2 weekends in jail, and my son gets to choose the weekends of his convenience.

The second appearance in a different county also carried a high chance of an extended stay at the county resort. Again only 2 weekends however the judge did mandate they be the next two consecutive weekends.

It's such a relief by all; the outcome was best as could be expected. Alex is still stressing from all of the fines. I tried to comfort him by explaining something that took me many more years to learn than he has been alive.

Money is easy. His initial response was a "HUH, yea!" I went on to explain, every single day we get an opportunity to make more money. Money is easy what comes today goes away tomorrow and more comes to take its' place. Money is nothing more than dirty paper and heavy metal. It provides a measure of comfort but fails by its very nature to provide joy.

Time and relationships are what's important. When you lose time and relationships that is irreplaceable. Every minute that goes by is gone forever, every dollar through your fingers gets replaced by another later. Joy is what you get from time and relationships. It's not the discomfort of jail that is the punishment. The loss of those minutes towards creating joy for yourself and in others is the punishment.

He seemed OK with what I said but I know from personal experience it takes a lot more life experience to accept a belief like this rather than acceptance because someone telling you it is so.

Lately Alex and his girlfriend have been joining us on Friday Date night. It is fun having them with us and we have been connecting with him in a way we have missed for several years. Looks like he will miss a few Friday's but that is OK. We'll catch up later.

ps.: almost forgot he does get to have Thanksgiving with all of us. :-) wonder if I will be able to think of something to be thankful for this year?