Paying Attention

Yesterday at the video store as my two year old son, Thomas, and I perused the Family section, he sat down in the middle of the isle and began to pout. Not a ‘I don’t want to be here’ kind of pout, but a ‘something is really wrong’ bellowing cry. I snatched him in my arms and high tailed it toward the door. Then it came. A quiet grumbling that developed into a full throated eruption. I broke into a full blown sprint just before I felt the warm, watery gush down my back. Luckily, my hair absorbed most of the first installment reducing the inevitable Midwestern catholic guilt that lurked over any awkward situation as this. The clerks inconspicuously peeked through the giant glass walls watching Thomas wretch a third and fourth time in the tiny patch of grass-strewn dirt in the parking lot.

I contemplated running in the store quickly to apologize and offer to clean up any vomit that may have splattered on the entry way tiles. I even considered quickly grabbing Charlotte’s Web, or asking one of the clerks to grab it for me so we didn’t have a repeat performance. Thomas quickly refocused my wondering mind chanting, “Up. Up. Up,” between whimpers. What was I thinking? or better yet, why was I thinking?

I took a deep breath, lifted Thomas into the car, and sat awkwardly in the front seat leaning forward and slightly to the right hoping to minimize the clean up process. I exhaled and surrendered to what was.
My two year old son was still sick. I was covered in vomit. And we were heading home for most likely several more days on the couch.

Later that day, as Thomas slept peacefully in the crook of my arm like a fragile angel, I reflected on the paths that my mind so easily wondered.

These sun filled Mid-July days are precious on the foggy coastline of Northern California. I lamented that we had not visited the river once yet this season. Yet I noticed how quiet my mind had become after three days of surrendering to the demands of this illness. Just four days ago, I was barely staving off to-do-list-induced anxiety, counting the days till school started and my husband and I would both return to work. We still hadn’t finished unpacking after a month and a half in our new home. Thank you cards for my son’s presents sat unfinished on the book shelf. Photos from our week on the lake had not yet been ordered. My husband’s now belated birthday present had yet to be purchased.

Yet in the immediacy that comes with caring for an ill child, those seemingly so important tasks scattered into the horizon of my thoughts and were replaced by the simpler reality of what is. Thomas has an ordinary stomach bug. I have a common cold. Both illnesses will be gone before the week is over and we will return to our healthy, active lifestyle.

It is in these moments, on these days, that I remember the blessings of health. I imagine the weight of more serious diseases. I think of my sister and brother-in-law sitting at their daughter’s bedside in the hospital after her tonsils were removed. I think of my mother changing her mother-in-law’s diaper, transferring her from bed to wheel chair and back to bed again. I think of my professor and his wife watching their 11 year-old daughter die from leukemia. And yes, I remember the blessings of health and consciously count the gifts of being alive.