Song Without An End

Memories, however, don’t disappear along with the kids. Most memories last as long as you do. One doesn’t forget the rush of delight over a child’s first steps, or the exhaustion of walking the floor with a colicky baby, or the terror of the first trip to the emergency room for stitches in a split chin, or the surge of delighted pride over a first soccer goal. In most cases, hindsight is a fine thing. Being able to recall one’s emotions is a facility that may prove instructive. It does, however, also have its down side.

Each of our three boys provided us with plenty of angst, as growing boys will do. Aside from plain old friskiness in the neighborhood, they had their share of medical emergencies. The three worst of those involved:

the eldest, who at age 13 cracked his epiphysis (the knob at the end of the long shinbone,where it meets the ankle), necessitating an orthopedic boot to be worn for several weeks;

the middle son, who broke his forearm, also at age 13, while lifting a man-sized barbell. To this day, I recall the weakness in my knees as I saw the droop in his arm, like the space between a Bactrian camel’s humps.

and the youngest, who at age 6 fell 14 feet from a tree he had climbed, breaking a leg spectacularly. He had a cast from hip to toes for several weeks, and started school on crutches. His classroom was on the second floor, and he had to sit down and hump his way up, backward, one step at a time.

I recall that in each instance of our children’s disasters, I held up pretty well until we had gotten to the hospital. As soon as the doctor took over, however, I had to sit down quickly and put my head between my knees. Injuries to sons are not high on my list of good memories.

Now that they are grown, I breathe a sigh of relief – or at least I did until I glanced at the youngest’s Facebook page the other day. He is by now a middle-aged man, tough and cheerful, the kind of guy who has a favorite bar where he plays on a darts team. Here’s his post:

“How’s this for craziness? While throwing darts tonight, I had a teammate accidently scratch the point of his dart across my right eye. The only result: my contact flew off and hit the floor. I’m thinking that someone up there is looking out for me ....”

We old parents who have dealt with skinned knees and broken bones and stitched-up chins like to think we are tough. We pride ourselves on having survived the days of head-between-the-knees reactions to our children’s disasters … but let me tell you, some things are indeed forever.

If I hadn’t been sitting down when I read that Facebook post, I probably would have dropped like a stone. As it is, I laid my head down on the keyboard as I felt my face go white, and proceeded to have an attack of the willies.

Motherhood is, after all, a song without an end.

Pages: 1 · 2

Relationships and Going Places, Grandparenting, Senior Women Web, Articles, Julia Sneden, Authors, What's New Add comments

Song Without An End

More Articles