For Every Mommy . . .

I've dithered about whether to post this.  It's a different kind of post, but hang on through the end.  It reads a little schmaltzy to me, but the feeling is genuine. Maybe I'm just schmaltzy?  I hope it works for you.

For every Mommy . . . 

There will be a handful of dates in the course of raising your children that will be permanently etched in your memory.  The day they were born, their first day of kindergarten, the day they got behind the wheel of a car (aaack!), the day they graduated from high school, the day they left home.

And the day you thought you might have lost them.

For me, those days are May 7, 2008, September 24, 2010, and November 29, 2010.

May 7, 2008 was a nice spring day.  This is unusual in the NW.  It usually pours rain nonstop from, oh, January until mid-June.  The sun was out, it wasn't too hot, it was nice.  It was also the Sub-District track meet.  My daughter was a high school junior and a good jumper -- high jump, long jump, triple jump.  She was warming up on the long jump, checking her steps on run-throughs.  Her steps were off, so she ran through (hence the phrase run-throughs) the sand pit.  There was hole in the sand and she stumbled.  Badly.  She crashed and end up crumpled at the end of the pit.  She didn't move.

Time will never move so slowly as when you are waiting for your child to move, to see how bad the injury is.  She continued to not move.  Nothing on earth compares to the rising horror a parent feels waiting for their child to move.  But eventually she did.  She had completely destroyed her knee, and with it her soccer career, her jumping career, three large ligaments, and her hamstring muscle.  It took three years and two major surgeries to restore her knee.  But she moved again.

September 24, 2010 was a cold, fall evening and a home football game.  William was a senior and a defensive back.  It had been a rough season and the game was not going well, although William was playing fantastically.  He was 3 tackles from the all-time school record for tackles in one game.  (He later explained to me that that was a sign of how bad the game was going -- no defensive back should ever have that many tackles because that means the line is letting too many get through. Stuff you learn, eh?)

It was the beginning of the third quarter.  The play started, the pile up happened.  When all the players got up, there was one on the ground, not moving. "Please," I thought, "don't let it be #6" -- William.  I looked and strained to see the jersey number.  It was 6.  Every mom of every football player has the exact same worst nightmare: neck injury.  He continued to not move.  Refs and players started to realize this was more than the usual player down.  People started to gather.  Coaches came out on the field.  Kneeling adults surrounded my son, people started waving towards the medics on hand.  And we started to beeline it for the field.  A school official stopped me.  "But I'm the MOM!" I said.  "I know," he said calmly.  When the officials won't let you on the field for your own good, it's not a good sign.  He told us to wait while he went to find out the severity of the situation.

It was his neck.  He had initially lost feeling in his hands, but it was coming back.  Taking every wise precaution, he was strapped to a backboard, helmet and all, and taken by ambulance to the hospital.  Watching your child being wheeled on an ambulance gurney, strapped down for possible spinal damage is horrible.  But he was ok.  He didn't lose it emotionally until the ER nurses had to cut his jersey off.  His number, his senior year.  He was King Cranky the week he spent wearing a neck brace until the surgeon ok'd him to take it off.  But he did get to take it off, he walked again, he played football again.

Two days after William's ER trip, we ended up taking Alex to the ER in severe pain.  (Fall 2010 kinda really sucked.) Right next to waiting to see if your child can move, watching your child in insensible pain is at the top of my "Things I Hate" list.  It took three doses of morphine before Alex was coherent again.  A CAT scan showed a massively inflated kidney.  He had a birth defect in his left kidney that was resulting in an obstruction.  It was going to require major surgery to reconstruct some of the support anatomy around the kidney.

And so November 29, 2010 arrived.  We drove early in the morning to Seattle Children's Hospital, went through all the check in procedures, and the surgery was underway.  They told us to expect it to  be several hours.  They would page us when he was in recovery and then it would be about 30 minutes for him to come out of anesthesia.  Time passed and we were paged.  Should be another 30 minutes.  An hour passed.  Then another hour.  Why wasn't Alex waking up?  Into the third hour, we started asking more serious questions.  Where was he, why wasn't he waking up?

Finally, as we approached the end of the third hour, Alex was wheeled in.  He was still pretty out of it, bloated, and red.  It was several hours before he was coherent and three days in the hospital before he could go home.  It was a month recuperating at home and another surgery (not to mention another ER midnight trip to Seattle) before he really began to recover and not have constant pain.  But he did recover.  He did come out of anesthesia.

For every Mommy whose child did not move, did not walk again, did not wake up out of surgery, your pain is known and not forgotten.  Not ever.  You are my hero.  I know enough to know I cannot ever know your pain.  

For every Mommy whose child will spend most of their lives in and out of hospitals and doctor appointments, you are an Angel on the right hand of God.

For every Mommy whose child has invisible struggles -- mental, emotional, spiritual -- you are the the Unsung Hero of us all.  Your sacrifice is known.

For every Mommy whose child will need full care for their entire lives, long into the years when you should be retired and enjoying relaxing vacations, you are the Boston Marathon Champion of Mommies.

For every Mommy who has gathered someone else's chicks under her wings, to love and protect and nurture, you are True Love, the greatest power on earth.

And for every Mommy -- in every color and size, even the ones who often go by the name of "Daddy" -- who gets up every morning and tries again, makes the effort again, hugs again, forgives again, repents again -- for we are none of us perfect--, loves again, you are the salvation of our world.  Of all jobs, vocations, or callings that can be undertaken by humans, none is greater than that of Mommy.

It is the most important job in the world.  Period.  Never forget that. 

Hug your kid and tell them you love them every day, even on the days you have to grit your teeth and cross your fingers behind your back.  When they say "hang up the phone and dance with me!" Do it, even if the music choice is from Yo Gabba Gabba. (What are they smoking?  Seriously.)  When they offer to share their tattered, smelly blankey with you, snuggle up close.  When they scream and yell and tell you they hate you, tell them you love them.  When their heart is breaking, hold them, even if they're a foot taller than you and can bench large forest animals.

At what price parenting?  Your heart, full and unconditionally.  And the return is everlasting and eternal.

Well done, Mommy.