It's funny what you'll save
It's funny what you'll save
The child’s colorless, horrified expression sent me sprinting past her through the kitchen door to the front yard, where many of the neighborhood children played before dinner. She was trying to tell me her younger sister was hurt, but she didn’t need words; I could smell the panic, and I felt a cold harness of dread constricting my lungs with fear.
The next few minutes would seem to move in slow motion, and years later when I look back, I will remember them as the most frightening moments of my life.
People save things. Some stuff is necessary; other stuff is just stuff, practically earmarked as future fodder for our own estate sales. People save stuff that is tangible, like the jeans I wore the day of my daughter’s accident. But other things we save are subtle in their worth and often, more important.
I was 19-years old when I got married. I was young, but I knew what I wanted. Like most teenagers, I knew everything. I saved the first picture my husband and I took together; it’s on a keychain, and you have to hold it up to a light to see it. We look 12.
The wedding took place four months after our first date, and our first child came nine months after the honeymoon. I was a mother at 20 years old, and I loved it. I felt responsible and grown-up, like I was privy to a great secret that only very mature people would understand. My friends from high school seemed silly and unfocused.
Everything was storybook perfect. I had a husband, a baby, and a career; I would be the envy of all my girlfriends.
“Oh no! What happened?!”
I may or may not have expected an answer to my question as I ran to my daughter, and frankly, I can’t be sure I said the words aloud. My strides were awkward, like sprinting through waist-deep molasses wearing tennis rackets for shoes. I couldn’t get to her fast enough.
Her shrill cry muffled my question. She sat covered in bright crimson blood, staring at me with panic that nearly paralyzed me with fear.
“What happened?!” I yelled. Had she been struck by a car? A gunshot? Was it a knife? All I knew was that blood was streaming steadily from her forehead to her mouth.
“What happened?!” I asked a third time. No one answered me, and later I would recall that every child on the block was crying.
When I looked to the victim for answers, though, it was too late. Her eyes were closing and her head was rolling backwards.
I stayed home and became a full-time homemaker after the birth of our second child. It just didn’t make fiscal sense to pay day care costs using wages I could earn without a college education.
By 25-years old and my sixth wedding anniversary, I had three children. The burden of raising a family of five on one income began to develop a strain on the young marriage; we were already calculating the cost of three college educations on an income that was barely meeting the monthly budget.
I never slept. I rarely left the house. I drove a mini-van with two car seats at an age when other twenty-somethings were bar hopping and buying Gucci.
My best friend from high school epitomized every characteristic that I decided I was missing in my life.
“You said you’d never drive a mini-van!” she reminded me one afternoon as we dined at a local Italian restaurant. She sipped her wine, absently tucking her chic hair behind one ear.
“Oh, you know how it is,” I explained with chagrin, smiling as I smoothed my functional ponytail. “It’s just so roomy.”
I could have died. Roomy? Where had all the glamour gone? I was a married woman! I had it all: a gorgeous husband, a home, kids . . . and a mini-van? I began looking at my life with more scrutiny.
My friend’s innocent comment cast a spotlight on my choices, because until that moment, I’d had no social yardstick with which to measure my life. My immediate circle consisted of other moms and their toddlers, not career-minded socialites with expensive shoes. Here was my elegant friend with a college degree, a great job, good income, and the free time to enjoy her adulthood. Her nails were freshly manicured, and I could tell that she’d just returned from the beach.
She was tan; I was pasty.
When I reached for my wallet, I had to grope through a large, square vinyl bag of baby wipes and half-eaten Cheerios. I needed to sort through coupons in order to find the spare 20-dollar bill I hid for rainy days; my friend’s money was in a neat row in the center of a Louis Vuitton wallet and matching purse.
She had disposable income; I had disposable diapers.
I’ve heard that in traumatic situations, the average person can summon superhuman strength. On the day of my daughter’s injury, when I dropped to my knees and slipped my arms beneath her limp body, I could have lifted a small SUV. I rose to my feet and looked immediately for help. Didn’t I have neighbors? Didn’t they hear the screaming? They all worked. I held my daughter to my chest and turned in two panicked circles looking for someone to help me.
Up to this point in motherhood, I had never contended with a tragedy more severe than that of a mild cat scratch, yet now I faced a wound that was bleeding like the flow of a loose garden hose.
Alone, I ran as fast as I could to my house, lumbering under the weight of my unconscious daughter. Twice, my knees buckled and I stumbled on the grass. It must have looked like a scene from a B-rated horror film.
I didn’t know it then, but after that day I would never watch another scary movie.
I’m not sure when it started, but at some point I began to resent my husband. I was young, stuck at home with three kids, and angry. My schedule revolved around nap times, feedings, and baths. Conversations were a bit one-sided.
Suddenly it was my husband’s entire fault; he worked in the real world, and I was home doing a clumsy impression of June Cleaver. We grew distanced. There was no longer a sweetness in the manner I viewed my situation. My husband tried to thank me for all that I did, but his gratitude fell on deaf ears; I was already falling into a deep crater of self-pity and taking everything in my life for granted. Something drastic had to happen if we were going to save our marriage.
I saved the metal baseball bat that split open the pretty skin on my daughter’s forehead. Who knew about head wounds? Dr. Spock forgot to mention that a nick on the forehead spews blood like the spray from an uncorked c
With a few stitches, she was fine. I prayed a thousand prayers of gratitude that it wasn’t something permanent. It was only a few hours before I realized this one event would make me thankful for so much more.
One by one, my children started school, and slowly I began to evaluate my life. I decided to get my college education and dedicate some time to myself. I became happier and more productive as a wife and mother. The occurrences of self-pity became less frequent as I slowly accepted the choices I made for myself all those years ago. My husband supported me, and our relationship got back to normal. Eighteen years have passed since we took that tiny keychain picture.
Later that night after my daughter was in bed, I gathered our bloodied clothes for the laundry. As the tub was filling and the bubbles were rising, I held my daughter’s stained shirt away from the water and smiled through tears. Folding it, I decided to save it just the way it was.
The sight of it instantly reminded me to be thankful for my family and for the decisions I made that allowed me to be home with my children that day.
It may not be a glamorous life of sports cars, diamond earrings, and European vacations, but it is a storybook life in its own way, full of ups, downs… and quite a few keepsakes.
