I debated quite awhile about writing about that boiling pot, and I didn’t want it associated with Dr. R’s afghan at all, matching pattern notwithstanding. But I did confess to that splash because it felt like there was a universal experience in there, that it was not all about me. Last night, I was tossing and turning, thinking about it.
It involves something I haven’t mentioned on the blog: that a few days before our trip to Salt Lake City three weeks ago, I found myself suddenly at my cardiologist’s. There’s got to be a word for when your heart’s arrhythmia knocks the air out of you so hard you cough, you can’t help it, it’s a reflex. Over and over and over. It took me a few days to get past the receptionist and the sub nurse, and when I finally did, I got told I should have gone to Urgent Care that first day when it was bad. Oh. Well, I’d seemed okay to me.
That little flareup is much better, and the cardiologist isn’t worried. Still, the thing was on my mind when I was trying to lift that overfilled and overly heavy pot with my daughter’s afghan in it, and the distraction might well have contributed to the splashing.
The thought I keep coming back to is this: we put our hearts on the line for our children from the second we see their tiny faces for the first time. Sometimes (writing as the mother of four people who have recently gone through teenagerhood) they don’t get it. If they don’t get What They Want Right This Second they don’t see it as us as doing What They Really Need, especially when it’s Vitamin N–the word no. But we know. Sometimes we wait for the day when they have their own children–not as revenge, but simply because there are some things that can only be learned through one’s own personal experience: like how much a human being can love another human being, from that moment and for every moment of the rest of their lives. We would do anything in our physical or emotional power to make things right for them. To make things work out for their good.
My daughter had hoped for an afghan the color of her brother’s (pictured above) and I was going to do everything I could to make that happen so she would be able to cuddle up in it and know that her mom loves her. Not that she doesn’t. But we never, ever stop teaching our children that we do.
And it feels lovely to be able to tell them yes.