Calypso's Island

Every night for the longest time I have read aloud to one or more of my sons. These days I read a chapter a night to my youngest, my nine year old. We have read the Chronicles of Narnia and all of Harry Potter aloud. We are currently on book four (The Battle of the Labyrinth) of the five book Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan.

Tonight I read the chapter called, "I Take a Permanent Vacation." It is my favorite chapter of the entire series. In it, Percy Jackson, a half-blood (mother is human, father is Poseidon) has been blasted from the earth by Mt. Saint Helens and is marooned on Calypso's Island. Calypso helps him heal from his wounds and get his strength back. But Calypso's curse is that any mortal that comes to her island will always leave her, and she will always be heartbroken after falling in love with him.

So, yes, Percy does leave the island at the end of the chapter. Percy always helps his friends, and he has to get back to the ones that think him dead, so they can stop a Titan uprising. But as he sails away from the island, Percy realizes that it is the beginning of his what if? Percy could have stayed and been happy on the island. The life-threatening prophecy would have been about someone else. He would have fallen in love with Calypso, become immortal, had no worries or cares in the world.

My nine year old doesn't understand the concept of a what if? decision. It is something that comes as you get older. That road less traveled that Robert Frost wrote about. The "Turn Left" episode of Doctor Who. Our lives are filled with small what ifs and occasionally we get a life-changing what if.  Those big ones can ruin us if we always look back and forget to move forward.

So the chapter really does make me sad. I remember the times in my life where things could have changed in a drastic way. And I let the bittersweet thoughts consume me sometimes. And I refuse to answer my nine year old because my what if decisions could have erased him from my life. Yet here I am. Sitting on the floor, with my son in my lap, reading a chapter he will have to grow to understand.

I will not dwell on the what ifs. I have the what is right in front of me.