A Tinkering in My Head

9/24/12

I watched a rerun of House last night. There was an epidemic in the maternity ward of the hospital and babies were sick. I never caught on exactly what was wrong with them because the first scene I saw was a baby, not even 2 days old, having a seizure. My brain froze and I could hear my heart beating rapidly in the silence of the living room.

I can watch Criminal Minds where people get their bodies mutilated, Bones where decomposed, jellied bodies and skeletons are laid/squeezed on the table and the news where the latest underage child is killed in a drive by, gangster or race related incident with interest, or no interest, but this was (for a lack of a better word) freaky. Then my mind raced through the what if's and the anxiety a mother has about their children. Random accidents (such as the recent article I read about a girl suffocating while playing hide and seek because she hid in a beanbag and no one found her in time), car crashes, home invasions, kidnapping...I could go on and my mind does often enough. Just like I often question what my actions would be if one of my children were choking, bleeding, or missing. I've had the blood draining feeling of turning around to find my child not behind me in the store and to find him, 2 seconds later (felt like hours), one aisle over because he got distracted by an action figure. Would I be the one that is focused and in control enough to hide my child from the attacker while I pray help gets here in time? Or would I panic? Take the wrong chance? What if my child became mentally ill, physically handicap or any one of the emotional stressors that could happen? Would life crumble around us? The people who can hold it all together, make a life out of a unexpected situation or have control are my heroes.

Staying on the phone with a 911 operator,calling the police or taking someone to the emergency room because they are hurt is different because they are not your own. You haven't watched them fall down to get back up or find a frog in the grass or pick out their first backpack. Even if you are related to said person, there is a disconnection and more of looking at it from the outside view. How would I react from the inside view?

What kind of parent are you? What kind of parent am I?