Torn

I was relieved when my co-worker bailed on me for lunch today. I really needed to sit and feel and think and write. Today, there is a dull ache in my heart.

Yesterday, that dull ache was a sharp pain. I was sitting at my desk (at work) when the phone rang. I was headed into a meeting that had been planned for weeks. I picked up, though, just seconds before I walked into the board room.

Hubby was on the other line telling me to relax before he even said anything. Don't ever do that to me. Tell me first. Tell me. And so, he did:

"Eli had a seizure and we're at the hospital." Eli is my 3-year-old.

I was quiet at first. The one thing I probably can not deal with is a seizure. You know, that just brought back memories of my sister, right before she died. She was in my livingroom when she had the first seizure--three weeks before she died. I witnessed her have many more in the following weeks--once in my car and again in my mother's house.

There is something that happens when you are a mom. You go into panic mode and you want to run to your child. Run! But, I could not. I had to, instead, sit through a meeting. Now, most moms will say: I would have left. Who cares about the meeting.

But, that is where the wisdom of having four children comes into play. I had to look at the cold, hard facts and I had to ignore my bleeding heart. Wisdom is hard because it halts panic mode and it doesn't allow you to simply move off of emotion.

Hubby was by his side. He was sleeping, and doctors were checking him out. Hubby promised me those three things. And, I had to trust him. "Please. Just stay at work; don't miss your meeting," he urged me. "I'm here. He's fine."

And so, I did. Until, you know, the meeting was over and then I hopped in the mom van and sped to Shands, where ... Eli was sleeping, hubby was by his side and doctors were checking him out. It was as hubby said it would be.

But, now, mommy was there. I rubbed his little back and whispered in his ear. He was knocked out--sleeping through a high fever. He laid there silently, engulfed in a set of white hospital sheets.

Not longer after, his fever had been reduced and hubby and I were walking out of the hospital to see his primary physician. I looked back and saw my hubby carrying little Eli, who was sleeping, draped in those white sheets that were almost touching the ground. That moment is probably seered in my memory forever--the precious act of fatherhood that I never witnessed, felt or heard as a child.

In that one moment, my heart was softened toward my husband.

Later that night, after the dust had settled, I found my husband sitting alone in a chair in the livingroom--his head down. "Are you OK?" I asked.

He was quiet for a moment and then, his voice cracking, he said "I thought he was dying in my arms. I thought he was going to die." (After watching him fall to the ground, he called an ambulance and drove behind them as Eli was transported to the hospital.)

I was quiet. Rubbing his back. "I don't ever want to see that again."

(Turns out that Eli has the flu. Oh, and the baby, he has an ear infection. Two-for-one, I guess. But, all is well. We're just feeling a little heavy today; that's all. I want to play mommy today; but I have my editor hat on. I'm torn.)