“William just called to say he got six stitches in his abdomen today at school,” said my husband, having searched me out in the Cyber Café of the cruise ship.
I was attempting to download my first video blog in international waters via satellite. Cool stuff. But apparently not as interesting as my son’s life back home.
Naturally, we were a gazillion miles away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean having a romantic holiday at sea when the crisis hit.
How long will it take them to get a helicopter out here, I thought.
“What happened? Did some kid stab him?” I asked. Not that I’m hyper-paranoid or anything.
It turns out that a hostile door with a broken handle and a bad attitude jumped out and bit him in the abs, “right where I’m getting a six pack” according to our son.
There are rules about running down school hallways and past doors with resentments at being over fifty years old and subject to the whims of tax-payers who hate to vote in favor of bond elections. Who could blame a door with that kind of baggage?
My dad, the retired gynecologist who happens to have innumerable surgeries in his experience, and my mom who is much more stable and practical than me, took him to the doctor in our absence. This is probably a good thing.
The last time one of our kids had to be taken to the emergency room, I made a scene. Okay, I’m sorry, but those doctors in the emergency room did not carry that kid around in their wombs for nine months. That’s all I have to say on the subject.
That night, after the decision was made that we could forego the helicopter, I dreamed that my son showed me the wound and, even though there was no sign of redness around it and no fever to indicate infection, I still had a terrible foreboding that all was not right.
The wound looked like a pirate had stabbed him.
Not that I’ve ever seen a pirate stab wound, you understand. Somehow moms just know these things. Especially when sleeping in a bed that is rocking to the gentle rhythm of the Pacific Ocean a gazillion miles away from her stabbed son.
When he showed me the wound upon our return, it wasn’t anything at all like my dream.
“Mom, you could see the fat hanging out where the gash was,” he told me. He assured me that it didn’t hurt a bit and he didn’t shed one tear. Apparently there are not that many nerve endings in your belly.
Which made me think of liposuction for myself.
Unfortunately, the guilty door with a penchant for stabbing people until their fat falls out is already repaired, so I’m out of luck.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http:/checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Kids are surprisingly Resilient, Part 2
There were three of them. Broad in the shoulders, blond-headed, easy smiles.
Brothers. Big men on campus. Co-eds swooned at the thought of them.
Being a big man on the campus at the University of Texas, with a population slightly less than Tyler’s back then, was no small thing even thirty years ago.
Unlike some of the other uber-achievers at the university, these brothers were respected not only by their male friends, but also by the gals as real gentlemen.
Being a leader on that campus marked you as a future leader anywhere you decided to settle; the cream tended to rise to the top.
Many of the campus leaders spent summers working at Camp Longhorn. One of the first of the high-end sports camps, Camp Longhorn is the place where blobs were first invented right after WWII by the owner who was also the Longhorn’s winning swim team coach.
At least one of the brothers was a counselor at Camp Longhorn where he was a trend-setter, too. He was cool, tan, and in charge of the boats, spending his days pulling campers through the water and teaching them to ski. His joy was infectious. Any kid lucky enough to draw the straw for his boat knew they were in for a treat. He had a perceptive way of focusing on each camper and making them feel like the most special human on earth.
In my last year as a camper, we were scheduled to take a special field trip to some fabulous place that escapes my memory now.
The campers were all a-twitter about something else; a small detour in route to the real destination. The day of the trip, all the campers were squirming with anticipation.
The bus pulled up in front of a middle-class home on a shady, tree-lined street somewhere in central Texas.
We were there to take a break, get a drink, and to meet his parents.
His parents were the big event.
The thing that sticks with me most is that his parents were very clearly, tenderly, affectionately in love with each other. And his mother was deaf.
Yeah, that was in the days before our culture had run through half a dozen politically correct euphemisms, like handicapped, challenged, impaired or special.
Those parents welcomed a bus-load of sweaty camp kids into their home and both spoke clearly to the group, extending their affection to us. Fingers flew and hugs were exchanged as the mom waved goodbye to her son when we pulled away an hour later.
Don’t ya wonder what challenges, like being hearing-impaired, do to the dynamics of a family?
I’m not saying that having a mom who was deaf made those brothers turn out to be the exceptional people that they were.
Personally, I think it was their parent’s hearts.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http:/checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.
Brothers. Big men on campus. Co-eds swooned at the thought of them.
Being a big man on the campus at the University of Texas, with a population slightly less than Tyler’s back then, was no small thing even thirty years ago.
Unlike some of the other uber-achievers at the university, these brothers were respected not only by their male friends, but also by the gals as real gentlemen.
Being a leader on that campus marked you as a future leader anywhere you decided to settle; the cream tended to rise to the top.
Many of the campus leaders spent summers working at Camp Longhorn. One of the first of the high-end sports camps, Camp Longhorn is the place where blobs were first invented right after WWII by the owner who was also the Longhorn’s winning swim team coach.
At least one of the brothers was a counselor at Camp Longhorn where he was a trend-setter, too. He was cool, tan, and in charge of the boats, spending his days pulling campers through the water and teaching them to ski. His joy was infectious. Any kid lucky enough to draw the straw for his boat knew they were in for a treat. He had a perceptive way of focusing on each camper and making them feel like the most special human on earth.
In my last year as a camper, we were scheduled to take a special field trip to some fabulous place that escapes my memory now.
The campers were all a-twitter about something else; a small detour in route to the real destination. The day of the trip, all the campers were squirming with anticipation.
The bus pulled up in front of a middle-class home on a shady, tree-lined street somewhere in central Texas.
We were there to take a break, get a drink, and to meet his parents.
His parents were the big event.
The thing that sticks with me most is that his parents were very clearly, tenderly, affectionately in love with each other. And his mother was deaf.
Yeah, that was in the days before our culture had run through half a dozen politically correct euphemisms, like handicapped, challenged, impaired or special.
Those parents welcomed a bus-load of sweaty camp kids into their home and both spoke clearly to the group, extending their affection to us. Fingers flew and hugs were exchanged as the mom waved goodbye to her son when we pulled away an hour later.
Don’t ya wonder what challenges, like being hearing-impaired, do to the dynamics of a family?
I’m not saying that having a mom who was deaf made those brothers turn out to be the exceptional people that they were.
Personally, I think it was their parent’s hearts.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http:/checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.
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