Month: June 2008

“A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.”
– Confucius

This evening as I watered my garden I watched my nieghbor, Russ teach his son how to mow the lawn. They spoke loudly over the roar of the engine. Russ’s voice was composed and instructional. His son Logan excited, almost giddy, finally getting to do something he’s watched his dad do week after week for years.

The lawn….a right of passage. A source of teenage income and a grown up chore. Mowers have engines, blades and use gasoline. This is a machine! You have to be old to handle this one; double digits at least, age ten and up.

“We’re going to switch it into gear….see that? Alright, now the blade is down and you just walk in a straight line. Is the blade down? I don’t think you’re cutting anything. Pull the lever. There you go, make it straight.” Logan finished a row by himself, stopped at the tree and turned around towards his dad. They both started laughing.

I walked into our house. “Russ is teaching Logan how to mow the lawn.” I told my husband.

“I know, I’ve been listening. It’s a big day.”

I kept the screen door open so I could hear them in the summer air. I was such a voyeur but I got such a kick out of their father-son moment. Logan, now big enough to mow the lawn.

It’s the little events that make a life.

So I’m playing with the title….let me know what you think! XO-Me

The doctor came into the room. She was young, in her 30’s with a look of ambition and concern.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Abbey. I’ve looked at Sam’s lab results and I’m at little stumped. She’s seems very dehydrated. So we’re going to start her on an IV. I’ve called in a couple specialists for a consult. Her white blood cell count is really high indicating an infection. I would like to order a spinal tap. How long has she seemed sick?”

I suddenly second-guessed everything I had ever done; the glass of wine when I was nursing, maybe I should have pumped longer, then there was that time when she fell off the couch….

“She’s been sick with a fever since Tuesday. I took her to the doctor’s and they gave us an antibiotic. They said it wasn’t serious and she was ok to travel.” I answered. “We’ve been concerned about her weight gain and hearing for a while and we were just starting to get second opinions.”

“Any brothers or sisters at home?” She asked.

I looked over at my husband. Do we answer this? Do we go there? It’s probably important that they know. God, I hate this question.

“She had an older brother, Jack. He was stillborn at 40 weeks.

Dr. Abbey looked up from her notes. “I am so very sorry.”

The silence in the room was deafening but I could hear the blood pounding in my head.”

“Do they know why?”

“It was a cord accident.” I answered.

“Did they ever do an autopsy?”

“No, the doctors said it seemed pretty obvious that was what happened.”

“Hmmmmm” The doctor looked down at her clipboard and scribbled some more notes.

“No!” I wanted to yell “they didn’t do an autopsy because we shouldn’t be here. We should have had our awful tragedy, grieved and moved on with our life. We shouldn’t be in Children’s with our second child. We shouldn’t be answering these questions. Life should be giving us a green light. And it’s so very unfair it kills me, it makes me want to puke, to crawl in a little ball, to hurt something as much as I’m hurting!”

Instead, I shrugged, looked over at my daughter and searched for something to do to mask my pain. I should probably refresh my lipstick, I thought.