As Wildfires Rage In Los Angeles, Miles Away, A LI Mother Prays

LONG ISLAND, NY — I have a mug in my cupboard, a white mug, with pink hearts, and a thin line connecting those hearts that spans the distance from New York to Los Angeles, the City of Angels, the place where my only son now lives.

The mug has words written on it, words that say simply that the love between a mother and son can transcend any distance — that we're always connected, our hearts and minds and thoughts.

And that's true. In the years since my son finished a college internship in Los Angeles and decided to stay, we've kept close with daily calls and visits and trips, making memories and sharing moments. I never feel far from him.

Not until today. Today, when I awoke to the nightmarish images of homes and trees and roadways burning in Los Angeles as voracious wildfires raced across the Pacific Palisades and beyond, destroying swaths of land and property and leaving at least two dead, people trapped in their houses, and animals stranded behind.

While my son is far enough right now from those fires that he's safe, the business where he worked was closed today, due to high wind and fire conditions.

A reminder that danger lurks.

To be cautious, he's packed a bag. Gotten the cat carrier out of the closet and placed it by the door.

Last night, he told me, when he called unusually early this morning, he'd gone on a rescue mission. His voice was quiet and laced with a fear I haven't ever heard there before.

He had gone to help save a cat whose owner was traveling. And, in the course of that ride, felt the smoke, thick and heavy in his lungs. Saw the hills illuminated with cruel, otherworldly flames. Experienced a complete power outage and a tree, fallen just inches from his car.

He's that kind of young man, my son. A heart of pure gold, he could never stand to see an animal alone, hurt or in danger. He'd do whatever it takes, and always has, to help someone who was cold or hungry or in danger.

Today, the cat is safe. My son is safe.

But my heart, it's a bit worse for wear, worn and jagged at the same time from worry.

And hours later, we learned that the house, where my son went to save the cat, was lost. Nothing left. Everything, gone.

Those cold fingers of fear, it was the same in 2013, when my son was a student in Boston, and a call came in the wee hours of morning, alerting parents that the school was on lockdown due to a shooter loose in the streets.

Living on the North Fork, I’d always felt as though Los Angeles was far, but manageable.

If I needed to, I could just jump on a plane and be eating In-N-Out and watching a marathon session of "Modern Family" with my boy in just a few hours.

But this morning, Los Angeles may well have been a world away. As images of fires raged across the screen and my laptop, burning, burning, burning, the orange hot and deadly, my mother’s heart grew cold with fear.

Logically, I know he is safe now. He's home in his apartment, away from the epicenter of the devastation, surrounded by friends and a support network and armed with maturity and good sense and the ability to problem-solve and protect himself.

But again, there's my mother's heart.

It’s hard enough to send our children out into the world, watch them take flight and grow, have whole lives and experiences that we're no longer a part of.

What no one tells you, when you're in that delivery room with a fragile newborn in your arms, your heart breaking in absolute half with love, is that one day, you'll have to hold your arms wide open as that child, now grown, leaves. As he boards a plane, bags packed, taking with him a part of you that will forever be forged and melded with his very being.

Yes, my son is a man now. He's handling this disaster with courage, calm and compassion. Willing to help, but also able to protect himself and those he loves.

But inside the adult he's grown to be, the young man I am so very proud of, lives the little boy who used to cling to my hand as he crossed the street. The child who couldn’t sleep at night without prayers and bedtime stories and songs. The newborn infant I would have died to protect, then — and still would, today.

No matter how far in the world they travel or what accomplished lives they lead, our children will always be our children. Our babies. And in times of crisis, a mother’s instinct, primal and fierce, is to gather her children close and protect them from the dangers that lurk outside the proverbial nest.

As parents, we don't let go, not really. No matter how old they are or what they've accomplished, where in the world they live or how many miles separate, our hearts, like those on that shiny mug, are still tightly connected by a cord so tight it's unbreakable.

And as I watch the fires rage, I whisper a mother's prayer, heard round the world from the lips of every woman who's ever loved her child with unimaginable fervor: "Please, God, keep my baby safe."