I’m excited to introduce Melinda Patrick, our guest author. She understands the hurting heart of a parent. Our children sometimes choose to stay on their path to destruction, and we are stuck waiting and hoping. Melinda is here to offer advice for us during our season of waiting.
He moved. I moved.
Then he leapt—smugly—over two of my marbles.
Without thinking, I countered. Reflex, not strategy.
Back and forth we went, for several tense minutes. Then I looked down and saw something unsettling: the Chinese Checkers board had shifted completely out of balance—and not in my favor.
Somewhere between aggressive hops and rushed responses, I’d lost the thread.
I was no longer playing to win; I was reacting, flailing, distracted.
A few more poor moves sealed it.
In desperation, I threw up my hands and made the universal sign of surrender: a big, exaggerated “T.”