Decision reflects mom’s true duty
It couldn’t have been easy. No matter how frustrated, how angry, how disappointed she might have been, Heather Robinson’s recent decision to send her son back to jail couldn’t have been an easy one to make.
Even though it appears he asked for it.
Even though it might save his life. On June 14, Wayne County (Ohio) Common Pleas Judge Corey E. Spitler revoked Travis Cottrell’s bail on drug trafficking and involuntary manslaughter charges — at Robinson’s request.
It takes a lot to drain the tap on your mother’s patience. She’s the one person who will ride-or-die with you when everyone else takes the exit ramp.
Second only to God and team owners, she’s the one who will stick with you no matter what you’ve done.
He’s lucky
According to a report by Jack Rooney of the Wooster Daily Record, Robinson, who posted Cottrell’s bail, informed the court her son reneged on his promises to get a job and stop abusing drugs, and that he was verbally and physically abusive to her.
As he sits in the Wayne County Jail, Cottrell might not believe it, but he is a lucky young man.
The fortunate people in life are those who have parents who won’t uphold you in wrongdoing or repeatedly rescue you from your choices when you spurn their advice.
There’s too much of that, with parents treating consequence like it was the Ebola virus.
Tough love isn’t just tough on kids. When no one is looking, every mother who employs it probably cries her heart out. To refuse to live in denial, to acknowledge that your child has fallen into the abyss despite all your best efforts to save him from himself, takes a depth of courage most people don’t possess.
No one gives birth to a child in the hopes they’ll end up addicted to drugs, or involved in a life of crime. Every newborn is a blank palette of limitless possibility.
‘It’s a burglar!’
No one, no one, foresees their child’s mug shot, or strung out, or in a jail cell. There are no “reveal” parties announcing, “We’re having a burglar!”
Cottrell is only 22, which means he has plenty of time to choose a different path and make his mom proud. We need only to think about ourselves at 22. While we might not have made some of the same choices, we all took needless risks and made bad decisions.
If you have a 22-year-old who isn’t addicted to drugs or sitting in the Wayne County Jail, credit yourself. Sometimes, though, it’s just sheer dumb luck.
You can do everything right and still produce a Clyde Barrow. You could be a rolling stone and end up being a poppa to a president.
To do what’s truly best for your child — especially when it doesn’t feel that way — takes a kind of love and courage that can’t be measured, or even totally understood.
Even when they hate you for it. Even when it breaks your heart.
Reach Charita at (330) 580-8313. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP.