Re the sick person at Purlescence yesterday: I totally understand. Her young daughter was sick the week before, then she caught it; it got so isolating and so old and she was keenly in need of adult facetime mixed with the positive vibes of creativity. So she came.
I get that. Believe me. When my oldest was five, she caught chicken pox, the last day of kindergarten after it had gone around and around the classroom, missing her–till it didn’t.
She’d had it at three months, so I thought she was immune, but no, if you’re under six months old the first time, you can get it again, often much harder the second time. (Yeah, and the youngest later did the same thing.)
At the very end of her being contagious…her brother caught it. At the very end of his, the next kid caught it. And likewise the next, stretching out our period of isolation from the last day of class to a few days before school started up again in September. The entire summer with four kids six and under at home only. No park time. No friends over. No vacations. No day trips. Not even so much as a stop at the grocery store together.
Then the vaccine came out–young families now are so lucky.
An entire summer of at least one kid sick nonstop and our not being allowed in public to spread the contagion. I was about ready to go out of my screaming mind.
So I knew.
But at the same time, the young mom who was there last night has not lived through and could never have known (see Jan 09 posts especially) what I’d gone through since those days, I mean, how many people have immune systems that attack their own organs at the slightest germ?
She came out for a moment to her car for something and saw Anne and me off by my car talking and called over to us, glad to see us. Oh there you are!
Suddenly I saw why it was a wonderful thing that there had been an unusually large number of cars and I’d had to park several shopfronts away: let’s see, a cough goes 20 feet–yeah. I’m safe here.
Anne called over, She doesn’t have an immune system (which was as good a shorthand as any.) The woman was contrite.
Which was all I needed. Anne told her, Let Purlescence know next time so they can call Alison.
Which I thought an uncommonly gracious thing to say. No blaming, no pouting, just a learning experience with no harm done (I fervently hope as I type that that everybody else that was there stays healthy). We all get to be young once. This is how we grow in our understanding of one another.
Meantime, after months and months of searching and I know how lucky we are to be able to say this and how many others so much wish for the day themselves. I want to shout it from the rooftops after all the angst and all the hoops and the crucial reference who flaked and didn’t answer their messages for the longest time: MICHELLE GOT THE JOB TODAY!!!