Any Given Day
This morning I saw my life flash before my eyes. Or her life. I saw her life flash before my eyes.
She is my five-year-old. And this morning started like any other hectic school morning: me running in from the gym to launch into the packing of school lunches, the dressing of children, the sorting of school gear while my husband races out the door early for work. The bribing of children into music practice.
Like everyone else, our morning routine is harried, but we manage. In fact, I like to think we have it down to a science.
But then this morning happens and you are reminded that you really don’t have anything under control. That where children—where life—is concerned, control is something we talk ourselves into believing we have to make ourselves feel better. And, if we are very, very lucky, the fates allow us to retain the illusion for a little while.
It started with one of those screams from the bathroom, the kind, as a parent, that you know right away is not the regular kind of scream. Not the get-annoyed-about kind. The pitch was too high and it grew louder and louder by the second as my husband and I sprinted down the hallway to see what had happened.
She was in the bathroom screaming even louder when I got to the door. Her back was to me, a hand up to her face. And then in one of those moments that moves in excruciatingly slow motion, I turned her around and pulled her hand down from her mouth.
And it was covered with blood. Her hand. Her mouth. Her chin. It dripped onto the white bathroom floor in awful bright red splotches.
She’d slipped across the bathroom floor and smacked her face into the toilet.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” I kept saying as I held paper towels against her face, hoping that I would not discover her lip had been completely torn off and hating myself for not getting around to taking that first aid course. “You’re going to be fine.”
And then I prayed that I wouldn’t get woozy from all the blood pouring out of her mouth. She needs you. Keep it together. I kept telling myself. You are not allowed to freak out. But man, oh man, did I want to. On the inside, I was having a full-on breakdown.
And that’s the craziest thing about parenting. You do. You manage to hold it together for them in those moments when all you want to do is fall apart. But the truly terrifying thing is that you can’t really be sure you’ll be able to until you already have.
The good news is that the bleeding did eventually stop. Her lip is still attached. Now, several hours later, she’s playing happily as we await an appointment with a plastic surgeon for what will probably only be a few stitches.
And I have been duly reminded to be grateful. For their health, and their happiness.
For the chaos of an ordinary day.
