Parenting|This happened to me
When Your Children Experience Pain
Child or adult, it hurts at every age.
You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.
I love this saying because it’s true. I hate it equally because it’s true.
Two incidents come to mind.
Son
Ten years ago, in the staff room of the school where my son and I worked. He suddenly appears as I turn around from doing humdrum things, like making coffee, tidying and small-talk. He stands blocking my way from the kitchen area.
He’s tall, with wide, strong shoulders. The light behind him, as I look up, is almost eclipsed. He looks like shit, staring at me blank-faced, mouth open and silent.
A mother knows when something is terribly wrong.
I wait because his whole body is already telling me bad news. I’m just not hearing it yet. I am unprepared. And the hour-long seconds ping scenarios into my imagination like SMS in overload. The kids? Marriage? You’re sick? Please, no.
Then he blurts. It is the only way to tell this kind of news, because telling it slowly, intricately, hurts more.
His wife has breast cancer. It has been undetected for months. She needs an urgent mastectomy. Chemo. She’s already in the hospital waiting for surgery. The oncologist is not optimistic.
As he speaks he visibly crumbles, then pulls back up. There’s a request to keep it secret, a quick hug, and he leaves. He needs a mother, but the job wins out. Answers vanish. The bell goes and real life is dismissed.
Daughter
Two and a half years ago. Early evening at home. The phone rings and it feels urgent even though unanswered. There is something about intuition that gives us that two-second warning.
Kids crying loudly in the background. A sense of controlled panic in my daughter’s tone. An urgency impossible to ignore.
Please come and get us. I’m leaving. We’re packed and on the front lawn, please hurry.
All the way there we’re sitting in silence too frightened to think. We pull up alongside the kids, doors explode open and they pile in. She has the look of a refugee, bedraggled and stunned, which lasts for weeks.
The threats to act have reached fruition, nurtured by violence and emotional chaos. The end of a long mistake begging for a new beginning.
It’s true. At any given moment, our unhappiest child determines our spirit. But regardless, and beyond every trial, there is always gratitude, and a sense of being blessed to still be the safe haven they need.
A story of parental angst by Sally Prag
