Monthly Archive

I have my son’s blood on my jacket, my jeans.

The phrase “falling on your face” has new meaning for our family, after Max, 4 ½, fell last Friday while running toward the playground  and didn’t get around to bracing himself first. I was talking with my friend Michelle when it happened, so I didn’t witness the fall. But the aftermath was a scene from a war film.

Max rose from the ground and ran toward me wearing horror in his eyes and coughing on the blood streaming into his mouth. My younger son, Ian, clung to my leg where he’d stay during the moments it took to seek help and get Max cleaned up.

NOT AGAIN.

Last time – just seven months prior – I hadn’t seen the fall, either. It was on the stairs at camp while Max walked down to meet me at pickup. He tripped on his backpack straps and fell nose first into the banister.

Max and his crooked nose, June 2012.

By the time I reached Max at camp, the staff had already cleaned him up, and he was holding an ice pack to his freshly crooked nose. For the week it took to surgically straighten it, I fought nausea and found it difficult to look at Max below his eyes. But I didn’t witness the bloody mess. Last week, it was the initial gore whose imagery now lingers.

These things have a way of imprinting on us parents. They add lines to our brows; they take moments, perhaps years, off our lives.

The ENT calls Max an “active” child. My father was one, too. He would eventually channel his energy through baseball and basketball, which he played throughout college. But as a boy growing up in Brooklyn, he got into a few bloody messes of his own.

At three, my dad went to the butcher with my grandmother and ran outside to swing on a gate. His thumb got caught in a hinge, and the tip was almost amputated. My grandmother, while nursing this wound and many others, yelled at him: “Why are you doing this to ME?”

The boo boos that rapidly heal on our children leave longer-lasting marks on their parents. The wrestling, rough-housing, falls and blood are all new to me having grown up with a sister and no brothers. My sister’s falling off her bike and breaking her hand was the only substantial injury I recall from both of our childhoods. I’ve already sought emergency medical care for Max twice, and he’s not even five yet.

People say boys are easier to raise – especially compared to girls’ hormones. But the grisliness of boys’ childhood injuries is emotionally wrenching for parents, too.

On Friday, after he was all cleaned up, a whole-body hug seemed to recharge Max. He smiled and asked if there would be a TV at urgent care; after all, there had been one in the emergency room over the summer. Children are more resilient than their parents. He reminds me of this often.

I practiced yoga breathing the rest of the afternoon and recharged with a bear hug of my own – from my husband. In the days that followed, I was grinding my teeth to the point of a tooth ache.

When surrounded by our children, there’s no time for parents to be visibly stressed. Those expressions must wait – often for subconscious moments. My dentist asked me recently if my gums and teeth felt more sensitive after stress. This time, the answer was evident.

This time, the urgent care doctor and Max’s ENT both came back with good news: Max broke only capillaries in his nose. A week after the bloody mess, the only scars remaining are of the mental variety. We were lucky.

The washing machine has lifted all evidence of blood from our clothes. I wish it were that way with my memory, too.