There is nothing like a visit to the Emergency Room to remind one of the things to be grateful for. More so when the issue turns out to be rather minor compared to what could’ve been.
There is also the hidden message in the very happening that one should heed. Yes, I am ‘the one’ in this case. While arranging little boy’s room last night and multitasking as I do at times, I wrongly assessed the height of a staggered piece of furniture. The knee that took the brunt of it made a sound that told of my mistake. A crunch of sorts that didn’t bide well. Yes, it hurt.
The next logical step was the ER. It is never a jolly scene there. You wait, you see a lot of suffering, rushed and exhausted medical staff, and people from all walks of life humbled by various health issues. Sobering indeed. We were third in line.
My husband and I were planning on a date for last night. It became one, but we wrote none of the terms other than those pertaining to togetherness. In sickness and in health, for better or worse. Grateful? Of course. Our date came with neon lights, waiting rooms, more waiting rooms and some unsmiling faces. On the plus side, we got some good reading time. A mom’s life allows for little leisure time so if I have to break a bone or stretch a ligament for it, so be it, the wisdom from above concluded.
As I sunk into my book beautifully titled ‘The gardener and the carpenter’ by Alison Gopnik, I came across soulful bits that soothed both heart and knee: ‘Loving children doesn’t give them a destination; it gives them sustenance for the journey.’ yes, it is a book about children, parents, and the bond between them, the mysterious, larger than life self-sacrificial love that takes the latter to the ends of the earth and back. Sustenance for the journey… The very words bumped into the worry ripples that mothering and homeschooling create occasionally and peace settled. It will all work out somehow in the end.
The wait in the ER allowed for slowness, the kind I rarely get. I suddenly had time. Granted, it was spent in life’s monetarily tight pocket, along with other humans whose faces betrayed pain and worry. You’re alone when you hurt and then you’re not.
In the ER under those neon lights, the hurt ones share the small space where gratefulness gets a renewed license and a sudden return to the importance of basic needs is guaranteed. Pain takes you to a place where few things matter. You’re present but somehow you appear in a smaller size, as if shrunken by forces you will never understand fully but are willing to learn about, especially during the shrinking. Then you get better and you forget all about the crisis that made you feel small and vulnerable. Or perhaps you don’t.
The X-ray room is intimidatingly minimalistic. Everything glides. Bed, big X-ray machine, the technician’s shoes, reminders of the barely moving patients that pass through. So many broken parts… you slide the people ever so gently into the room and get the machines to hover over them so they can be put back together. Fragility redefined.
I tell myself I will not be slowed down for long. My mind allies with me to get the body to believe it can move fast soon enough. There’s boys and pup and so much life bubbling. Gratefulness abounds. Counting my blessings while the big X-ray machine whirs. Get back, get the better than expected news, hobble out the door not before pushing the big green button. Leaving a world of pain behind. Gratefulness and sadness for what lies behind. For what lies ahead. Life is to be grateful for. Every day, every bit of every day and every instant that renders us alive after churning our souls through the pain and fear machine.
I remember reading this a while ago… ‘Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses…’ (Alphonse Karr). It is true. Life is not about being happy regardless. It is about finding bits of happiness among the potholes in the road that may or may not have you break your leg as you fall into them. Because you were too busy counting the birds in the sky, or the stars, or you were watching for the approaching storm. Either way. Life happens.
Granted, the castle in the back yard is in ruins. There were two at some point but they morphed into one. Why two, you may ask. Well, because two (little) people at some point in time thought to lay siege on each other’s castle by catapulting stones. When you’re a boy in love with the knight times, it makes all the sense the in the world.
Speaking of raised beds and gardening. There’s remnants of both, despite dogs and knights. How many gardeners can brag about finding knight-in-training hand prints among emerging bean plants? Or a puppy with a tell-tale dirty nose? Honestly, I think the beans are going to lose. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As for the garden… It may or may not make it this year. Much of it this has retreated to large pots because of the waves of enthusiasm and creativity sweeping through the yard at any given time. I am not about to stop any of it though. You see, all of this happens but once in a lifetime and if I let it live as it might, the boys will stay just as they are for a while. Just boys, silly and covered in muck, never mind the foot prints on the kitchen floor. Backyard (and beyond) adventures await and if enough adventures happen then there is no need to ever say ‘Mom, can I stay a kid forever?…’ Because they will.
I have a fresh cup of coffee and the ‘to do’ list I left on my desk last night clearly states that I should attend to my article on stroke and depression. I dawdle instead.
That is what I can give to my boys. Time together is how I craft it for them, with them, and there is no guarantees either but faith, blind faith that the tree we nurture together will grow to have strong roots and a crown large enough to provide shade when needed – for them, for those they love, for those who need it when they need it. Faith that their hearts will never harden to refuse shade to those who ask for it.
I give big brother a quarter cup of coffee or so and the steam draws out laughter, stories, gazes averted but souls pushing closer to each other as uneasy topics nestle their elbows in between the two of us; we squeeze them a bit just to show they have nothing on us. Playing invincible? I used to. Now I play fair: sometimes life is overwhelming. My growing boy needs to know that, as he’s leaving childhood behind to enter the world that makes no sense at times but fills us with the kind of longing that keeps up going for seconds every day and every day after that.
For Mother’s Day just a week or so ago I got hugs, smiles and a wasp nest found in some sun-drenched woods. Cards made by them, adding to a pile that will one day become a framed expose of love bits. Cannot think of better gifts. Worthiness.
Every few months or so, or at least a couple of times a year, there is some news about a mom breastfeeding in public and the implications of that. A case of a storm in a glass of water if you ask me. Somehow, we’re just not over this issue though it has been happening since the beginning of human history.
It’s only fitting that the robin comes flying by the side of the car as I drive slowly after dropping off little boy for Forest School. It is March 8, and growing up meant Mother’s Day. No bells and whistles, no marketing campaigns or Hallmark cards, just carefully hand drawn cards, mostly with snowdrops because I loved to draw them and they matched the small bouquet in my hand.
Where I sit by the side of the road there’s fresh bold new blades of grass, so green they look surreal, each carrying gifts of morning dew. That’s what the day is about to me. Life.
Today is not about politics but about finding the space and time to see. Today is about saying ‘Thank you’ to my Mom, remembering what vulnerability and strength look like, put them back in my satchel as I carry on with the journey and telling my boys: