CG & The Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Now that I am back safely in the confines of the blogosphere, I just might cry. To say that today was a bad day is an understatement. And yet, at the end of it, what I feel is only thankful.

The very first thing was that the cat who had her kittens in the garden showed up with them on the porch. Well, three of them. We’d like them to be garden cats so we took them back down. We found the fourth one there, dead, not a mark on her. All the others had marks, although whether from something trying to get them or from their mother carrying them a quarter mile, I don’t know. They are not young little kitties but nearly ready to be on their own so it was extraordinary for her to carry all of them that far.

We brought the living back to the house, took a breath, and got ready to leave for the day.

There were some minor other things this morning, trying to get copies made. I need copies of things to man a booth at a homeschooling expo. That I don’t actually want to go to. And yes, I am responsible for myself and could have said, ‘No, I can’t do it’ but . . . I’m glad I ran into someone ever so long ago at a LLL meeting who had an article by John Taylor Gatto that we realized the truth of and so it changed our lives. Someone took the time to be there, went to the expense of copying that article. Maybe someone will be at this expo who just doesn’t fit the more Christian than thou, more structured than a salt crystal type of homeschooling (and to quote Seinfeld, not that there’s anything wrong with that) that is most common and will find out that they too can homeschool. Or just that they are not alone in being different.

So anyway, we got through the copies and someone in the store accidentally walking off with my most crucial original, through losing something else, through the ATM being closed. We made it to the park, to the gathering of homeschoolers who are from at least four different homeschooling groups in this area. I think that is so cool. So I’d relaxed and the kids were all enjoying themselves playing. And I went to help youngest swing and daughter #1 took off racing a boy she’d been climbing with. I looked up a moment later to see that she has fallen. And something tells me it is BAD. Just her face. Just how she is. Just how the boy beside her looks guilty.

Then she screamed. And I was already running toward her. She was sitting there, face bloody, nose bleeding, but it was her knee. I told her she’d be ok then I screamed bloody murder, “HELP ME, SOMEBODY HELP ME NOW!” And slowly I saw the other mom’s across the way get up and try to figure out what this banshee was. Finally one saw me. And they came. And I screamed, get my kids. And I ran to the car to get a towel because somehow I couldn’t let that gaping wound just be there. I only draped the thing over it, hiding it probably from myself. I picked her up and carried her to the car.

But not before I’d screamed at the boy she’d been racing. If I could take only one thing back for the day, it would be that. I just wanted to know what had happened. Basically I don’t trust any other children besides my own. Maybe because I was a child and I know how mean kids can be. Shoot, I know how mean adults can be so I have a lot of trouble trusting any of them with real pieces of me too. And I am a mama bear. And I yelled, did you do this on purpose? It turns out, best I can reconstruct, that they were racing pretty much side by side. He happened to have a big beach towel and it was flapping as he ran. It tangled around daughter’s legs. She really fell. I just needed to know and I am way too direct when I am like that. People can’t take it. Platinum couldn’t take it and would melt instead.

Our doctor’s office was just over the hill a couple miles from the park. I was off. With a background of helpful people wondering if we should try to cleanse it and offering gauze pads and things that just bring tears to my eyes they were such kindnesses in the midst of my blind “my child is hurt BAD and I must take care of it.” I was not panicked. I really don’t panic until I think there is nothing I can do. But the mind considers the possibilities and options at a rate so lightening quick that I’ve already thought of all the other stuff. I thank you, I thank you so much, but I’ve got to go now.

You could see her patellar tendon. That’s how bad it was. I think I was the only person who realized how bad it was.

When I got to the doctor’s waiting room, I almost started sobbing. I didn’t because to do so would have scared my children too much. But I knew that here, in this place, with these people I rarely see and yet have relationship with due to them having been our doctors for 13 years, I knew that whatever was wrong, it would be alright. They could help me. They would help daughter.

And so the medical procedures began. I love that stuff. Just not on my own little girl. It seems most of the gravel from that parking lot was in her knee She’s abraded from head to toe in addition to the knee wound, but it is the only serious thing. She’s loosely stitched up to allow for drainage, is walking, bending it pretty normally, icing it, taking some ibuprophen. He swears she will scar but he swore that when #2 son had his chin stitched up and you can’t even see that anymore. She is fine and she will be fine. And we go back in to see the Doc in the morning to make sure of everything.

And I am so grateful. That’s the only thing I feel. My kids were so good, both before and during and since the accident. The people at the park were great. My daughter was great. The Doc and all his people were excellent, exceptional. I got to go by and see my new friend Kim for a minute afterwards, and she was totally uplifting to me. Friends from the park called to make sure we were ok. Husband got home after we did and he has been very sweet and nice and helpful.

Sometimes I wonder if the universe has always been this nice and I just neglected to notice. I know sometimes I do.

I am so sorry I yelled at that boy, sorry that I scared him. But this is the strangest thing, the not-ready-for-the-blogosphere insight, that there is something about emotional energy that cannot be held on to (as in held in, bottled up), but there is also something about it that it cannot be released (let out, vented) either. That emotional energy is not a good way to relate to the world. That emotional energy is about and is for something else. I’m not sure what. I’m all hazy on this part.

But it should be interesting to see because the universe usually follows up on its learning opportunities.