Tetyana Denford - 25 May 16
I’m sat on the bed next to my son, the sterile, starched sheets crinkling under my body. I’m dressed unremarkably in jeans, grey jumper. . I have my laptop to write, my coffee perched on the squeaky table in front of me. I’m staring. Silent.
My son is 5. Just turned 5. He feels small on his bed, all 115cm of him dwarfed by a long white unsympathetic mattress on wheels with metal bars on the side. He’s wrapped up in a blue duvet festooned with cartoon pirates and way too many happy fish. His Batman t-shirt has splatters of blood on it and his hand still has a tube taped onto it, where the anaesthetist supplied the medicine for the surgery. His face is slightly sorrowful, his big eyes not the ones I recognise, void of the dancing that they do when they see the world. A couple of nurses move swiftly and gently around him doing routine assessments, and I’m watching the flurry of activity, slightly removed, like another piece of hospital equipment, ignored in the middle of the room.
Today he had his tonsils removed. Standard procedure. I had prepared myself, I had prepared him. I brought the games, the lollies, the strength of spirit, the can do attitude. I was going to be okay. He was going to be okay. It was all going to be okay. I repeated all of this ad nauseam to myself.
He was being prepped before surgery, reading Find The Wizard books and smiling at the nurses. His eyes were bright and trusting. The anaesthetist walks in and chats for a bit, and swiftly starts working the needle into his hand. My son jerks over slightly, blood spatters. He looks at his hand, then at me, his eyes wide and overcast. Shit, shit… I thought. He thought this would all be okay. He’s scared now. What do I do? Handle it, I tell myself. So, I smile and say what all mothers do in this situation: “It’s all okay.”
But, no, it doesn’t feel okay.
“Mamo, something hurts. It hurts…” he pleads. And before I could answer, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slipped away from me onto the pillow. Limp.
I instinctively wrapped my arms around his unresponsive body, kissing his forehead, and then they wheeled him away. All of this happened within the space of 20 minutes.
I walked out into the hallway. It was clinical and quiet. I felt like I was on an empty stage at the end of a show, and everyone had gone home. I heard someone crying plaintively. Oh, wait. That was me.
I was prepared for the logistics of going to the hospital with him. Of course I was. It was standard, routine, conventional, very little risk… all of those rational things that friends and parents and doctors all tell you. Yes, he’ll be fine, of course he will, you’ll be fine, no big deal.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the completely unnatural feeling of seeing my child, my baby, slip away from me. I felt like I wanted to reach in and find that hidden internal switch to make him open his eyes again. Wait, that was too quick, where did you go? It was a completely foreign feeling (even though I knew that he would be back to me within an hour). Helplessness, fear, anger, sadness, panic, enforced bravery, confusion… all of those feelings in heavy, equal measure, thumped into the centre of my chest as I was standing there. I was rooted to my spot in the hallway for what felt like an eternity (in reality it as more like 3 minutes), a deer in headlights, not knowing where to go. Someone put their arm around my waist and led me back upstairs to my room, to wait for him. What was I supposed to do now? Do I look out the window? Do I pace the floor? Do I make some tea? I felt temporarily without purpose. My brain couldn’t engage.
I’ve been extremely fortunate that I’ve never had to witness chronic, serious or terminal illness within my family. We’re all pretty healthy and built like brick walls (touch wood). So, this was the first time that I had to be with my child in hospital since he arrived onto the planet 5 years ago. My role from that point on as a mother was to be there, to fix things, to heal the hurt, to stroke his head until he closes his eyes. My role that morning had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. My role was to let go, and it was counter-intuitive. Someone else had closed my child’s eyes for him, and it felt supremely ridiculous, no matter how rational the reason was.
When he came out of surgery, he searched for me through the fog of pain killers. He pleaded with me to hold him. I was relieved that he was okay, that the surgery was (as everyone pointed out that it would be) problem-free, and that he was back with me. Of course I knew that he would be back with me. But… what if that hadn’t been a possibility? What if he had faded away from me, never to come back into my arms? It’s a completely inconceivable scenario in my head. Doesn’t compute.
I mean, sure, I’m realistic when I think about how life and mortality work and that I won’t, can’t, always be with him. But for now, as far as I’m concerned, the future exists in the now, the everyday, the mundane moments that I get to spend with him. The moment he came back to me, that fierce feeling of this is my beautiful creature to protect was what I hope I can remember every single day of my life. It’s a heady combination of melancholy and euphoria and adoration. It’s powerful. It’s important.
The nurses pour back out of the room and close the door, so I climb into his bed and curl up beside him. I feel his breath next to my cheek and I stroke his head, so grateful for these first few groggy moments, watching him slowly make sense of his world again.
“You know, I was there when you closed your eyes. I was waiting for you,” I say, hoping to comfort him and ultimately reassuring both of us, in some way, that we would always be okay. Will he always know that? Will he always know that I’ll try my hardest to catch him when he needs me?
He sighs, shades of exhaustion passing over his little face, and buries his head into my shoulder. “I love you.”
Yeah, he knows.
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Tetyana is a Ukrainian-American mum of three, married to an Englishman, living in NY. She's written for Elle and Vogue magazines, and her first novel 'Motherland' is available at Amazon. She hosts a YouTube show called The Craft and Business of Books, translates for Frontline PBS news, and writes freelance.
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