The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

I cannot leave my cell phone unattended during the day when my oldest son is at school. I panic that if I go to the bathroom or dare to attend a workout class without the thing glued to me that the school will call, that my son will have been in some sort of accident or is horribly sick and needs me — and I’m unavailable while I’m sweating to the oldies.

In fact, one day after a meeting, I forgot to turn my ringer back on and, wouldn’t you know it, BigBrother had been pushed on the playground, had a scrape and bump on his head and I missed the damn phone call. They eventually called my husband who tracked me down, and I rushed to the school full of guilt and worry. He was fine and went back to class.

But the worry is always there: Will something happen when I’m unable to be right there? Will I make it there in time? Will I be caught unaware? Will it be a day I’m having a temper tantrum about work or motherhood or snow or the house in which we live or my waistline, causing me to leave the house and take a long walk to clear my head without my phone? Will I ever be enough?

– __ — __ —

Yesterday, in the midst of a stressful work day and working out what we were going to offer on a house, I received a text message. So very few people text me because I so rarely respond. iMessaging on the new iOS 4 has caused me to text a little bit more, but still really only with the people whom I would have texted in the first place. But now it’s free. I digress. The text message was from Dee.

She wished us the best of luck with our house offer… and then told me that Munchkin was in the Emergency Room.

There’s really nothing worse than hearing your child is in the Emergency Room. Whether you’re actively parenting that child or not, it’s a horrible, gut-wrenching, almost paralyzing kind of pain that slices from your head and turns the knife right into the deepest part of your gut. It physically hurts.

I won’t go into details about what is wrong, other than she’s seeing a pediatric cardiologist tomorrow.

But I will tell you that feeling helpless… sucks.

The truth is that Dee also feels helpless. When you don’t know what is wrong with your child, there’s this aspect of helplessness and anger and even a bit of motherly guilt and failure mixed in for good measure. Add in the element of being so far away, of not being able to be there if something went wrong, of not … being enough, and it’s just difficult to handle, to understand, to process.

And, even more so, it’s amazingly difficult to swallow the fact that something is wrong with your daughter and you don’t know what and you can’t do anything — at all — to help and go about your every day life as if nothing is wrong at all.

I am thankful for coworkers who understand when I send a message that I may disappear. I am thankful for friends who respond on twitter fast as lightning. But it’s a weird realization that if she was here, if this was happening in real time in my home, I wouldn’t have put in an offer on a house yesterday. I wouldn’t have worked at all, without warning. I wouldn’t have gone on a play date this morning and pretended like everything was hunky dory in my world. I wouldn’t have been expected to make dinner and smile and do laundry and live the everyday of life. I would be with her. And I’m not.

I feel as if I’m floating outside of myself right now, watching as all of this is happening. Maybe I’ve purposefully disconnected from myself, afraid to feel or move or breathe or blink, because I don’t even know how to process some of this.

I can’t do anything.

Nothing.

I don’t deal well with that. … obviously.

I am thankful, beyond measure, that Dee communicates with me. That she can text me and ask me medical history questions. That she can keep me updated and we can lament together in the helplessness, in the worry, in the anxiety, in the hope. I am thankful for knowing so much, so instantaneously.

But it strikes deep into that helpless feeling I felt eight-and-a-half years ago.

– __ — __ —

I went to pick up BigBrother from school today in the cold beginnings of snowfall. A mom with a worried look on her face escorted out her son who was crying, holding an ice pack to a bump on his head. My heart softened and I said a prayer for his poor little noggin. And then I felt jealous that she was able to be there, to take him to the car, to care for his bump.

I smiled at her and she gave me that look that moms give when they are overwhelmed. I nodded. At that moment, BigBrother slammed into my legs, engulfing me in his after school hug. I wrapped my arms around his head and closed my eyes for just a second.

Safe for another day.