A couple weeks ago, Annie got sick. She had a fever off and on, was tired, but had no other real complaints. No sore throat or aching ears. At the urgent care she was negative for the big three – strep, flu, and Covid- so we just watched and waited- giving her Tylenol and rest. But two days after we went to urgent care, I came home after being out for a couple hours and found Anne flopped on the couch, her eyes glassy and her head warm, no, hot. I took her temperature: 105. The on-call nurse for the pediatrician’s office instructed me to take her to the ER. A temperature that high was dangerous. The nurse there gave her ibuprofen, checked her ears and throat, listened to her lungs, did all the swabs. A chest x-ray eventually found pneumonia. It’s been going around our schools and community like wildfire, the doctor said.
In my 14 years of parenting, I’ve never seen a fever that high. Annie was so sad and listless, so out of it. As I sat in the ER with her body pressed against my chest, I had a moment of panic, a moment of fearing the worst. What if she wasn’t going to be OK? What if we lost her? The way our children force us to stare into the abyss of our most enormous terrors.
Of course, reality pulled me back from the edge. Within an hour of getting the ibuprofen, she was cracking jokes and begging to watch Instagram reels. We were giggling together as I attempted to collect a urine sample. She was irritated at me for taking her picture – pointing to the sign on the wall of our little curtained-off room that said “no photography.”
She’s finished her antibiotics and still fighting congestion. Still not 100 percent, but on the mend, anyway.
I feel as if we as a country, have been living in a waiting room of uncertainty for months. We’re both the parent and the child. The fever hasn’t broken and we’re delirious from the heat and the collective breath we’ve been holding. So weary we can hardly even toss and turn in the discomfort of it anymore. We’re grinding our teeth over the worry. The what if? The what next? We need fluid and rest. The reassurance of a parent and a professional. But here we are, in our last days sitting in the waiting room, attempting to make peace with the not knowing. Praying for the best possible outcome. Dreading the worst.
I’ve been thinking about what I could say to my daughters or my students should they ask me about, what? What comes next? Should they come seeking reassurance. Should they express any sort of anxiety. Is there comfort I can offer? Are there basic truths we can all circle around and find peace in?
I’ve been grappling with what to say. So I turned to verse. And writing helped be the cool palm on my forehead. Even just for a minute. Here’s the poem. It doesn’t have a title yet.
What we do know
is that the earth will keep spinning
which means the sun will keep rising
and the the sun will keep setting.
We also know
not one of us -
not the billionaires or the beggars-
will survive this life
and that in between
the bellowing, blinding glow
of our entry
and the rattling, wheezing twilight
of our exit
we are called
to each other.
Here is where it gets messy.
Because while we all check
for ten fingers and ten toes
and while we stroke the velveteen infant cheeks
and we coo and soothe and sing lullabies
we’re all terrified we will lose
our most precious others.
Our reptilian brain
flicks its tongue into our ears
commanding us to seek out
all the differences
to sort what is us
and what is them
to sharpen our spears
and reinforce the battlements.
And as the masses huddle,
There have always been loud voices
eager to take charge
of the categorizing and the culling
in the name of protecting what's ours
so they can get what’s theirs.
Here’s an ancient story-
written after the one about
how in the beginning
there was nothing.
after life was breathed into stones.
after the lotus flower was split into parts
and the gods cleaved themselves
to ease their loneliness.
After we were shaped from clay
with the help of the moon-
After all those
is the myth
that we are all different.
And the myth
that there is not enough.
How we must commune with those
who are the most same
and hoard all we can
to prevent our own suffering.
We recited this story
so many times
Our voices became hoarse
So the words are grafted into our bones.
We’ve read and re-read the story
so many times
the binding broke
again and again
and again and again
we glue it back together.
We revised this story.
So many times
casting new victims and villains
in each new draft.
The red ink dripping,
smearing the pages.
Obscuring the narrative.
How did we get here?
It is as it was at the beginning.
This business of how we live together
inside the terror of our own frailty.
All of us sleeping with one eye open
Not quite trusting the night watchman.
All of us the fussy baby
in need of rest.
Instead of retelling the story
into a restless slumber,
Let’s sing a song
we all know.
Let’s give each other grace.
Let’s give each other grace.
Let’s give each other grace.
Doesn’t this version
sound sweeter already?
As I was searching for an image to pair with this post, I came across this picture I took while out for a walk weeks ago. A dead bumble bee curled up in a Dahlia. Lily and I both marveled at how beautiful it was that the bee sought out this flower as its final resting place. I think it’s relevant today because nature has its own process and we humans are part of it. And despite all our messiness we’re all deserving of the same peace this little bee found in its last moments. I think we forget that in the tumult and chaos of our day to day. All so wrapped up in the hustle and the headlines. This life is short. Give yourself grace.