Less than fully formed

Sometimes blog posts marinate a while.  It may be that I’m trying to decide if I really want to write about a specific topic, or I can’t quite form the ideas into a coherent story, or I have a great idea that will likely offend someone and I keep it to myself.  This one has been brewing for a couple weeks, may not be a coherent story, and totally could offend someone.  But this morning’s paper pushed me to complete it.  Why this morning’s paper?  Well, there’s a column written by our neighbor.  And this morning she wrote about how blessed they were.

The neighbor’s daughter had a terrible accident two weeks ago.  She fell off the side of a high dive and landed stomach first on the edge of the pool.  Five days in the hospital in Madison and a lacerated liver later and she’s been back at home in good spirits since.  She was actually over playing with Allison today.  So the story has a happy ending and that’s important.  Above all else, I’m really, really glad that it was not more serious because it easily could have been and that’s always you fear as your kids venture further from you.  SOMETHING might happen.  That SOMETHING might be tragic.

So, we’re happy she’s well.  Very happy.  But that relief was followed by two pretty (for lack of a better term) un-Christian thoughts.  #1 – “gee, those kids get manage to get injured easily enough under the watch of their own parents.”  This, as you may or may not know, stems from an incident two years ago when Allison hit Lucas with an apple-picker and the neighbors declared that their children could not play around Allison unless they were supervised (presumably by me).  All the details were sketchy because Allison and Lucas were the only ones outside and the two of them are like oil and water – but the details are less important than the outcome- which is that they felt that Allison was a threat to the wellbeing of their children.  This is not something easily forgotten.  However, since then Lucas fell and broke his arm (while at the park with their dad); Ben got several stitches playing football at school; and Grace lacerated a liver (while at the pool with her mom).  Injuries acquired while at our house – one apple picker incident which did not even require a band aid.  (insert me knocking on wood here).  To the neighbors, WE are that house that your kids like to play at that makes you wonder whether there are liquor bottles lining the kitchen and nudie calendars posted in the workshop; which - by the way - is full of power saws with no safety locks and a gun cabinet in full view.  (Oh, wait, that was my friend Lisa’s house growing up).  Whatever – Brian and I are THOSE PEOPLE.

Thought  #2 – jealousy.  Well, not so much as thought as a feeling.  Yeah, not particularly proud of this one, and it took me a little while to put my finger on it exactly.  In the age of Facebook, you get to spread news near and far in an instant and have a community of support right away.  This is one of the great advantages of social media.  That we can reach out and support one another in times of need is awesome.  But as the conversation thankfully turned to “keep her in your thoughts” to “it’s all going to be OK” there was a slightly insidious message that started to take hold and one that was reiterated on Facebook, in messages, and in face-to-face conversations.  It went something like this: “we were so lucky.  It could have been so much worse. She won’t be able to do this or that activity for a while, but in the grand-scheme of things – one summer without soccer is not so bad.  Even the doctors were surprised that was her only injury.  We’re so blessed, she must really have Someone looking out for her because it could have been terrible.”

And here is where the bug got me – because it IS going to be OK.  There aren’t any long term effects.  She’ll weather this storm as a blip in the road and go right on back to being totally “normal.”  And “wow – was that scary, but thankfully NOTHING’S WRONG.”  Because clearly, the counter point is that if there is something WRONG you are not blessed.  You are not lucky.  Someone is not looking out for you.  So, yeah, I’m glad that nothing has marred the perfect future you envision for your child.  I’m glad that you feel blessed to have no LONG-TERM effects.  No sneaky demons that creep up when you least expect.  And you get to pat yourself on the back and think that all that clean living is really paying off.  Way to go – here’s your gold star!

So for your daughter, who I wish no ill will upon what-so-ever, I’m really happy that things are OK.  But a small part of me wishes that you could experience some of what it’s like to have problems that don’t go away so easily; that carry some long-term uncertainty; because then you might have a little more understanding and empathy.  Understanding that sometimes not being ‘OK’ is also a blessing; and those who sometimes seem “wrong” are lucky and have Someone looking out for them too.