(no subject)
*****
September 13th, 2010
I don’t have children and after last night, I don't think I ever want to. If you get put through the emotional landslide like I was last night, every time they get hurt, then I’m definitely sure I don’t want them. Why would I voluntarily put myself through that kind of misery and worry on a day-to-day basis? I know there’s a pay-off. There has to be, or else we’d stop procreating.
Or maybe I’m giving the human race too much credit.
***
I’m struck by how angry I have the capability of being without reacting to the appropriate level of said anger.
I went to town this weekend to have a meeting with all of the Northern Region Volunteers. We discussed simple things like whether or not we wanted to get air conditioning at the sub-office, or how language selection can be improved at sites. We talked about getting t-shirts and possibly having drinks available at the lodge house.
This morning I woke up, got dressed, went to visit my friend Mohammed and got another rabbit. I went to the tro station and loaded my luggage, had a nice chat with the American volunteers living in the village next to mine and proceeded to take the four-hour trip full of potholes and mud slicks to my village with remarkable aplomb.
All the while, my landlord’s rented tractor had flipped over, dumping all of his groundnut harvest into the bog, an irrecoverable loss. Perhaps more importantly, everyone riding in the wagon was thrown off - including Fusina.
I arrived home around four in the afternoon to an empty house. I thought it was odd because the house is rarely deserted at that time, as everyone’s returned from farm and using the last hours of daylight to clean and prepare food. At the very least, some of the older children are hanging around.
I tried not to think much of it, but I had a very unsettled feeling. Taking advantage of the quiet, I went to work on fixing the rest of my rabbit cage - a small table where I can write and eat, with a lifting surface to house a rabbit below. I clipped down every bit of chicken wire so there were no shards, made sure I didn’t miss any of the hammer strikes, which would’ve busted through the thin plywood I’d bought the day before. I lined the bottom with excess plywood to keep the rabbit protected from wind and rain.
The entire thing wouldn’t have been necessary if I hadn’t miscounted the males and females, ending up with an extra doe. I did a check about two weeks ago of all the houses and found my mistake. Instead of trading the extra doe for a buck, I decided to get another male and keep her, in case something happens to someone else’s. It’s a nice pet, too - a lot less trouble than a dog who eats baby goats and has no fear of the wrath of neighbors.
By the time I finished, the sun was on the horizon and the moon was a quarter of the way into the sky. I was sweating, dirty, but slightly self-satisfied.
And I was still alone at the house.
Alhassan, Sadi’s nephew, arrived then, announcing his presence with his usual smile. I like the kid, if only because he speaks English, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d come back. Most of the farming was finished and he’d been sent home to start school the previous week. I didn’t ask - I thought he’d forgotten something or there was a late harvest he was helping with. Schools are notorious for starting weeks late anyway.
I went inside, cooked some noodles and decided to be extravagant and use some of the Alfredo sauce mix I’d gotten in a package. I was briefly appalled at the amount of butter the recipe required, and then I spooned it into the pan.
Just as I was pouring the sauce onto the noodles, I heard a commotion outside. Everyone was returning from farm. It had started to rain, so I thought that maybe they were going to spend the night at the farm hut. It was a relief that they’d come home - I didn’t want to think about Abibata, four months pregnant, or Fusina or the other kids sleeping out there with all those mosquitoes and no net.
I was going to greet, but I couldn’t leave the food at the moment, and it would’ve been rude to shout at them from the inside. Alhassan came inside in a rush, his face dirty and covered in sweat. He told me that the tractor had done this, and made a swiveling motion with his hands, so his brother said that he should come and help him. I wasn’t clear on what he was saying, so I had him repeat it a few times, each time becoming more worried because it seemed like Sadi had been injured.
He repeated several times that I should go and greet Abibata and Fusina, which was odd, because children (he’s about fourteen) don’t tell adults what they should or shouldn’t do and he should’ve known that I would come out in a moment to take my dinner on the porch.
That’s when I noticed that Fusina was crying. Children here are always crying, so I’ve learned to block it out, but this was a different sort of cry - it’s the kind she uses when they’re going to give her medicine and she’s screaming bloody murder.
I put the food down, strapped on my headlight and went outside. The five of them - Abibata, Fusina and the three young girls helping at the farm, Alimatu, Fusina and Ayisha - were sitting on Abibata’s porch, in the dark. Fusina was in her mom’s lap and the first thing I noticed was that she didn’t even move to see me, even though I’d greeted her and she usually gets ecstatic when she sees me. Her mom’s face was covered in dirt and she looked nearly catatonic.
I tried asking them what had happened and they started explaining - too quickly - for me to get more than a few words. Alhassan was gone, disappearing into the night to go and help with the tractor. I saw that Fusina was protecting her leg and put two and two together. I thought that perhaps it’d been scratched or bruised, so I took a quick look at it and she went into hysterics. She wanted to go to me, so I sat in a chair and took her on my lap, scared at the way she was clutching at my shirt. Abibata went to wash her face and put some water on for dinner while I did my best to take in the baby’s injuries.
The way she was screaming, it…did something to me. I was holding her, unsure of the extent of her injuries and all the while I was becoming nauseous. I started sweating and couldn’t breathe right. I’m not used to that. I deal with critical situations well. I’ve been the first person on the scene of some sort of incident several times and have always kept my composure and taken the correct subsequent steps, but this was different. It was someone I loved.
I took a better look at her leg and did some palpitations and it was obvious that it was dislocated at the hip with a complete fracture to her femur. The only thing I could think was “It’s pitch black, the road to the clinic is thirty kilometers of two-foot deep potholes filled with water…there’s no way they can get her there right now.”
We each get a field medicine guide before we go to our site and, in the dark of my room with only a headlamp, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I called the PC doctor just to be safe and got an extension of basic first aid tips from him and relayed it to the family.
They weren’t really listening to me and it was extremely frustrating. They insisted on giving her a bath, which required moving her . I disagreed and told them it was a bad idea, but I really had no say in the matter and was trying to tread lightly. Even though sometimes it feels differently, she’s not my child.
So they bathed her and got her cleaned up, which seemed to make her feel a little better, but it was just because she was stationary again. There were people coming in and out of the house, Fusina was lying on the porch on a cloth and a cushion and they would just…come up and touch her leg then, each and every one, declare, “It’s broken.”
Well, no shit it’s broken - she’s on her back and her toes are pointing to three o’clock. It looks like she’s had a softball stuffed into her leg.
By the time the fifth person came and just put their hand on her leg, I snapped. I gave them the equivalent of “Are you going to fix her leg by touching her? No? Okay, then get away, because you’re hurting her.” I don’t think I endeared myself to anyone, but I don’t care. I was furious that they thought they could just come up and rub their hands on her broken bone, causing her to break out in a panic. Children sometimes get the shaft because they cry about everything and no one takes their injuries seriously. For the most part, I agree with that sentimentality, but this was a broken bone, excruciating no matter how old you are.
But that’s how things are here. People come that never stop by the house, just to see what’s going on, curious and nosy, then do things like that and it’s impolite to refuse it. Well, I’m not them and I put that to its full advantage. I’m still seething over it.
Sadi came back an hour or so later and took in the severity of the injury. They’d known she was hurt, but not how badly. The tractor, when it flipped, was several miles away from the village. With no phone reception, they couldn’t call anyone for help or get a motorcycle. So, Abibata loaded up the baby on her back, screaming I’m sure, and made the long trek home while Sadi and the nearby men stayed behind and tried to salvage what they could of the groundnuts.
Four months of work and about a third of their yearly income. Gone.
When he got back, I could see that he was exhausted and worried, covered in dirt as well. I hadn’t even thought to ask how he and his wife were - I was only focused on Fusina. While Sadi was coming, he’d called the local healer in and the elderly man arrived a few minutes later with his gear. I could see a local splint and was relieved. I’d been combing my mind for anything I had in the house that would work on her tiny leg, but there was nothing. The other resort would be to get some sticks but pretty much every thin, straight stick in a two-kilometer radius has been stripped in the last month to make local fencing for gardens.
I brought out some cloth strips to tie and help with padding the splint and found some wooden pencils. I told the man I thought the splint should be extended to around her butt and stomach with those because her hip also needed to be immobilized, but either it got lost in translation or he just ignored me. The way it was going, I’m sure it was the latter.
You know, pretty much my entire job is to talk and talk and have everyone (with the exception of one or two) ignore what I’m saying. I get that. But this was different. It wasn’t some sort of far out idea that’s never been done before - obviously, because he had the rudimentary tools that were required to fix at least part of the situation. There wasn’t any real effort required of anyone. The outcome wasn’t uncertain. It was merely suggesting something along the same lines to pair with the intended treatment.
Nope. Sorry, foreign girl, we got this.
And I suppose they did. This wasn’t the first bone break they’d dealt with and it won’t be the last. But it was Fusina’s and I love that kid and there’s something different when it’s that and no one thinks you know what you’re talking about.
Because I was pretty much the only one that could console her at that point, the man had me hold her down while he sat the bone. I had to choke back the vomit and keep myself from passing out. Not at what was being done, but because I was contributing to causing her so much pain. Her entire body was shaking and at times, she was slipping in and out of the present. I’ve never heard a child scream like that before.
She had no pain medication.
It was ultimately what had to be done to make her better, but that’s not any consolation at the time.
After the bone was set, they broke out the razors and I had to literally bite my tongue to not say anything. I have no idea what it was, but it looked like a charcoal paste. He put small nicks all over her thigh, about fifty, and rubbed the paste into them. Fusina was still screaming and I wanted to scream and throw whatever their rocks and grass and herbs concoction was out of the compound.
It felt like it took hours, but it was over in about twenty minutes.
She fell asleep a little after that, exhausted from the screaming and the pain. We made a tea and put some aspirin in it, but she wouldn’t drink it, knowing there was medicine.
They give kids medicine for everything here and, most of the time, administer it incorrectly. I remember putting up a fight against things like cough syrup and children’s Tylenol, but my parents never held me down and forced it down my throat while I kicked and screamed and had my mouth pinned closed while I tried to spit it out. The kid’s been traumatized by it and now she’s refusing any kind of pain treatment. She’s suspicious of everything we’ve given her because she hates the pills and knows we’ve laced her food and drink with it.
They put her in Sadi’s room under a mosquito net about an hour ago and she’s just starting to calm down. I told them they should just lift the prayer rug she was on as one and carry her on that, but he decided to just pick her up bodily and move her while Abibata carried the mat and cushions into the room and set them under the net.
It was unnecessary to move her leg like that, no matter how careful they were trying to be.
And again, what can I say? She’s not my child and they have the right to take care of her how they see fit. But I have to shake my head at the…idiocy I see here sometimes. It’s just stubbornness and blatant disregard. I want to scream at them to once, just once, listen to me and see that things really will be okay, even if what you do is not the first thing that you would’ve done.
It’s started to rain again and I feel like a coward because I’m relieved. I can’t hear her crying in the other room.
***
I thought about editing this, but decided that, no, it’s how I felt last night, even if it doesn’t show them or me in the best light.
I just want to make it clear that the parents really do care about her. They weren’t blasé about the whole thing - the worry coming from both of them was palpable. But in this life, it’s do or die situations a lot of the time. Not in that extreme sense, but, for instance, if Abibata had sat around, crying like I could tell she wanted to, no one would’ve eaten that night. They don’t have microwaves or bags of frozen vegetables here. I’m sure it helped keep her mind off of things, too - her child hurt like that and there’s literally nothing she could do about it. I hope that it was of some comfort to her that I was sitting there and, at the moment, I was the next best thing.
And Sadi was in rare tender form, something normally unseen from men in this culture. Children, as I’ve said before, are for the men, even though the women are the direct caretakers. He was snapping at the other kids in the house a little more than usual, but it was just the stress from everything else that had happened. He let Abibata talk back to him quite a few times, knowing, I’m sure, that she was just as upset as he was.
It was the little things telling me that they were as distressed as I was that kept me from going off the handle.
I had a meeting lined up in another village that I almost called off today. I didn’t want to leave her, even though both parents stayed home today. In the end, I went, knowing I needed to get out of the house for a few hours after barely sleeping the night before. Sometime after one, the rain stopped and every half hour, she’d wake up, screaming.
I could only lay there and listen to her, tears in my own eyes, praying that the pain would pass and she could just sleep. My mind was racing with thoughts of sin eaters from olden days, movies like The Green Mile and how I wished I could transform myself into one of those, but take the pain instead.
Sometimes, when my Dad prays, he’ll say something to God like “If I have any blessing at all, let it pass on to my family.” I know it’s not the same, but I felt like I almost understood that last night. The only thing I could pray for her was that - that God would take anything good He was going to give to me and give it to her in the way of health.
I think maybe He listened.
When I got home today, she was in the room and I sat next to her, rubbing her head and fanning her. We always play this game where I touch her nose, or squeeze it, or tug her ear and I make different beeps and honks. I call her the Fusina Lorry and she thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. I did that a few times, honking extra obnoxiously, testing the waters because she seemed calm.
She smiled. Not the grin she gives me when I’ve just come home from traveling and she knows I’ve brought candy, but it was enough to make me think that maybe she’s going to be okay.
September 13th, 2010
I don’t have children and after last night, I don't think I ever want to. If you get put through the emotional landslide like I was last night, every time they get hurt, then I’m definitely sure I don’t want them. Why would I voluntarily put myself through that kind of misery and worry on a day-to-day basis? I know there’s a pay-off. There has to be, or else we’d stop procreating.
Or maybe I’m giving the human race too much credit.
***
I’m struck by how angry I have the capability of being without reacting to the appropriate level of said anger.
I went to town this weekend to have a meeting with all of the Northern Region Volunteers. We discussed simple things like whether or not we wanted to get air conditioning at the sub-office, or how language selection can be improved at sites. We talked about getting t-shirts and possibly having drinks available at the lodge house.
This morning I woke up, got dressed, went to visit my friend Mohammed and got another rabbit. I went to the tro station and loaded my luggage, had a nice chat with the American volunteers living in the village next to mine and proceeded to take the four-hour trip full of potholes and mud slicks to my village with remarkable aplomb.
All the while, my landlord’s rented tractor had flipped over, dumping all of his groundnut harvest into the bog, an irrecoverable loss. Perhaps more importantly, everyone riding in the wagon was thrown off - including Fusina.
I arrived home around four in the afternoon to an empty house. I thought it was odd because the house is rarely deserted at that time, as everyone’s returned from farm and using the last hours of daylight to clean and prepare food. At the very least, some of the older children are hanging around.
I tried not to think much of it, but I had a very unsettled feeling. Taking advantage of the quiet, I went to work on fixing the rest of my rabbit cage - a small table where I can write and eat, with a lifting surface to house a rabbit below. I clipped down every bit of chicken wire so there were no shards, made sure I didn’t miss any of the hammer strikes, which would’ve busted through the thin plywood I’d bought the day before. I lined the bottom with excess plywood to keep the rabbit protected from wind and rain.
The entire thing wouldn’t have been necessary if I hadn’t miscounted the males and females, ending up with an extra doe. I did a check about two weeks ago of all the houses and found my mistake. Instead of trading the extra doe for a buck, I decided to get another male and keep her, in case something happens to someone else’s. It’s a nice pet, too - a lot less trouble than a dog who eats baby goats and has no fear of the wrath of neighbors.
By the time I finished, the sun was on the horizon and the moon was a quarter of the way into the sky. I was sweating, dirty, but slightly self-satisfied.
And I was still alone at the house.
Alhassan, Sadi’s nephew, arrived then, announcing his presence with his usual smile. I like the kid, if only because he speaks English, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d come back. Most of the farming was finished and he’d been sent home to start school the previous week. I didn’t ask - I thought he’d forgotten something or there was a late harvest he was helping with. Schools are notorious for starting weeks late anyway.
I went inside, cooked some noodles and decided to be extravagant and use some of the Alfredo sauce mix I’d gotten in a package. I was briefly appalled at the amount of butter the recipe required, and then I spooned it into the pan.
Just as I was pouring the sauce onto the noodles, I heard a commotion outside. Everyone was returning from farm. It had started to rain, so I thought that maybe they were going to spend the night at the farm hut. It was a relief that they’d come home - I didn’t want to think about Abibata, four months pregnant, or Fusina or the other kids sleeping out there with all those mosquitoes and no net.
I was going to greet, but I couldn’t leave the food at the moment, and it would’ve been rude to shout at them from the inside. Alhassan came inside in a rush, his face dirty and covered in sweat. He told me that the tractor had done this, and made a swiveling motion with his hands, so his brother said that he should come and help him. I wasn’t clear on what he was saying, so I had him repeat it a few times, each time becoming more worried because it seemed like Sadi had been injured.
He repeated several times that I should go and greet Abibata and Fusina, which was odd, because children (he’s about fourteen) don’t tell adults what they should or shouldn’t do and he should’ve known that I would come out in a moment to take my dinner on the porch.
That’s when I noticed that Fusina was crying. Children here are always crying, so I’ve learned to block it out, but this was a different sort of cry - it’s the kind she uses when they’re going to give her medicine and she’s screaming bloody murder.
I put the food down, strapped on my headlight and went outside. The five of them - Abibata, Fusina and the three young girls helping at the farm, Alimatu, Fusina and Ayisha - were sitting on Abibata’s porch, in the dark. Fusina was in her mom’s lap and the first thing I noticed was that she didn’t even move to see me, even though I’d greeted her and she usually gets ecstatic when she sees me. Her mom’s face was covered in dirt and she looked nearly catatonic.
I tried asking them what had happened and they started explaining - too quickly - for me to get more than a few words. Alhassan was gone, disappearing into the night to go and help with the tractor. I saw that Fusina was protecting her leg and put two and two together. I thought that perhaps it’d been scratched or bruised, so I took a quick look at it and she went into hysterics. She wanted to go to me, so I sat in a chair and took her on my lap, scared at the way she was clutching at my shirt. Abibata went to wash her face and put some water on for dinner while I did my best to take in the baby’s injuries.
The way she was screaming, it…did something to me. I was holding her, unsure of the extent of her injuries and all the while I was becoming nauseous. I started sweating and couldn’t breathe right. I’m not used to that. I deal with critical situations well. I’ve been the first person on the scene of some sort of incident several times and have always kept my composure and taken the correct subsequent steps, but this was different. It was someone I loved.
I took a better look at her leg and did some palpitations and it was obvious that it was dislocated at the hip with a complete fracture to her femur. The only thing I could think was “It’s pitch black, the road to the clinic is thirty kilometers of two-foot deep potholes filled with water…there’s no way they can get her there right now.”
We each get a field medicine guide before we go to our site and, in the dark of my room with only a headlamp, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I called the PC doctor just to be safe and got an extension of basic first aid tips from him and relayed it to the family.
They weren’t really listening to me and it was extremely frustrating. They insisted on giving her a bath, which required moving her . I disagreed and told them it was a bad idea, but I really had no say in the matter and was trying to tread lightly. Even though sometimes it feels differently, she’s not my child.
So they bathed her and got her cleaned up, which seemed to make her feel a little better, but it was just because she was stationary again. There were people coming in and out of the house, Fusina was lying on the porch on a cloth and a cushion and they would just…come up and touch her leg then, each and every one, declare, “It’s broken.”
Well, no shit it’s broken - she’s on her back and her toes are pointing to three o’clock. It looks like she’s had a softball stuffed into her leg.
By the time the fifth person came and just put their hand on her leg, I snapped. I gave them the equivalent of “Are you going to fix her leg by touching her? No? Okay, then get away, because you’re hurting her.” I don’t think I endeared myself to anyone, but I don’t care. I was furious that they thought they could just come up and rub their hands on her broken bone, causing her to break out in a panic. Children sometimes get the shaft because they cry about everything and no one takes their injuries seriously. For the most part, I agree with that sentimentality, but this was a broken bone, excruciating no matter how old you are.
But that’s how things are here. People come that never stop by the house, just to see what’s going on, curious and nosy, then do things like that and it’s impolite to refuse it. Well, I’m not them and I put that to its full advantage. I’m still seething over it.
Sadi came back an hour or so later and took in the severity of the injury. They’d known she was hurt, but not how badly. The tractor, when it flipped, was several miles away from the village. With no phone reception, they couldn’t call anyone for help or get a motorcycle. So, Abibata loaded up the baby on her back, screaming I’m sure, and made the long trek home while Sadi and the nearby men stayed behind and tried to salvage what they could of the groundnuts.
Four months of work and about a third of their yearly income. Gone.
When he got back, I could see that he was exhausted and worried, covered in dirt as well. I hadn’t even thought to ask how he and his wife were - I was only focused on Fusina. While Sadi was coming, he’d called the local healer in and the elderly man arrived a few minutes later with his gear. I could see a local splint and was relieved. I’d been combing my mind for anything I had in the house that would work on her tiny leg, but there was nothing. The other resort would be to get some sticks but pretty much every thin, straight stick in a two-kilometer radius has been stripped in the last month to make local fencing for gardens.
I brought out some cloth strips to tie and help with padding the splint and found some wooden pencils. I told the man I thought the splint should be extended to around her butt and stomach with those because her hip also needed to be immobilized, but either it got lost in translation or he just ignored me. The way it was going, I’m sure it was the latter.
You know, pretty much my entire job is to talk and talk and have everyone (with the exception of one or two) ignore what I’m saying. I get that. But this was different. It wasn’t some sort of far out idea that’s never been done before - obviously, because he had the rudimentary tools that were required to fix at least part of the situation. There wasn’t any real effort required of anyone. The outcome wasn’t uncertain. It was merely suggesting something along the same lines to pair with the intended treatment.
Nope. Sorry, foreign girl, we got this.
And I suppose they did. This wasn’t the first bone break they’d dealt with and it won’t be the last. But it was Fusina’s and I love that kid and there’s something different when it’s that and no one thinks you know what you’re talking about.
Because I was pretty much the only one that could console her at that point, the man had me hold her down while he sat the bone. I had to choke back the vomit and keep myself from passing out. Not at what was being done, but because I was contributing to causing her so much pain. Her entire body was shaking and at times, she was slipping in and out of the present. I’ve never heard a child scream like that before.
She had no pain medication.
It was ultimately what had to be done to make her better, but that’s not any consolation at the time.
After the bone was set, they broke out the razors and I had to literally bite my tongue to not say anything. I have no idea what it was, but it looked like a charcoal paste. He put small nicks all over her thigh, about fifty, and rubbed the paste into them. Fusina was still screaming and I wanted to scream and throw whatever their rocks and grass and herbs concoction was out of the compound.
It felt like it took hours, but it was over in about twenty minutes.
She fell asleep a little after that, exhausted from the screaming and the pain. We made a tea and put some aspirin in it, but she wouldn’t drink it, knowing there was medicine.
They give kids medicine for everything here and, most of the time, administer it incorrectly. I remember putting up a fight against things like cough syrup and children’s Tylenol, but my parents never held me down and forced it down my throat while I kicked and screamed and had my mouth pinned closed while I tried to spit it out. The kid’s been traumatized by it and now she’s refusing any kind of pain treatment. She’s suspicious of everything we’ve given her because she hates the pills and knows we’ve laced her food and drink with it.
They put her in Sadi’s room under a mosquito net about an hour ago and she’s just starting to calm down. I told them they should just lift the prayer rug she was on as one and carry her on that, but he decided to just pick her up bodily and move her while Abibata carried the mat and cushions into the room and set them under the net.
It was unnecessary to move her leg like that, no matter how careful they were trying to be.
And again, what can I say? She’s not my child and they have the right to take care of her how they see fit. But I have to shake my head at the…idiocy I see here sometimes. It’s just stubbornness and blatant disregard. I want to scream at them to once, just once, listen to me and see that things really will be okay, even if what you do is not the first thing that you would’ve done.
It’s started to rain again and I feel like a coward because I’m relieved. I can’t hear her crying in the other room.
***
I thought about editing this, but decided that, no, it’s how I felt last night, even if it doesn’t show them or me in the best light.
I just want to make it clear that the parents really do care about her. They weren’t blasé about the whole thing - the worry coming from both of them was palpable. But in this life, it’s do or die situations a lot of the time. Not in that extreme sense, but, for instance, if Abibata had sat around, crying like I could tell she wanted to, no one would’ve eaten that night. They don’t have microwaves or bags of frozen vegetables here. I’m sure it helped keep her mind off of things, too - her child hurt like that and there’s literally nothing she could do about it. I hope that it was of some comfort to her that I was sitting there and, at the moment, I was the next best thing.
And Sadi was in rare tender form, something normally unseen from men in this culture. Children, as I’ve said before, are for the men, even though the women are the direct caretakers. He was snapping at the other kids in the house a little more than usual, but it was just the stress from everything else that had happened. He let Abibata talk back to him quite a few times, knowing, I’m sure, that she was just as upset as he was.
It was the little things telling me that they were as distressed as I was that kept me from going off the handle.
I had a meeting lined up in another village that I almost called off today. I didn’t want to leave her, even though both parents stayed home today. In the end, I went, knowing I needed to get out of the house for a few hours after barely sleeping the night before. Sometime after one, the rain stopped and every half hour, she’d wake up, screaming.
I could only lay there and listen to her, tears in my own eyes, praying that the pain would pass and she could just sleep. My mind was racing with thoughts of sin eaters from olden days, movies like The Green Mile and how I wished I could transform myself into one of those, but take the pain instead.
Sometimes, when my Dad prays, he’ll say something to God like “If I have any blessing at all, let it pass on to my family.” I know it’s not the same, but I felt like I almost understood that last night. The only thing I could pray for her was that - that God would take anything good He was going to give to me and give it to her in the way of health.
I think maybe He listened.
When I got home today, she was in the room and I sat next to her, rubbing her head and fanning her. We always play this game where I touch her nose, or squeeze it, or tug her ear and I make different beeps and honks. I call her the Fusina Lorry and she thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. I did that a few times, honking extra obnoxiously, testing the waters because she seemed calm.
She smiled. Not the grin she gives me when I’ve just come home from traveling and she knows I’ve brought candy, but it was enough to make me think that maybe she’s going to be okay.