A Day When Everything Makes Me Think of You

With a pang of guilt I confess you are no longer my first thought when coming down the stairs each morning. I don't think of medications to prepare, formula to mix, and diapers to change. I don't always look at your picture in your special corner and say "good morning." Nor do I play your Pandora station every day. It makes me sad, and I don't want to feel empty.

This morning I leave for work as always — a few minutes later than I had "planned." I turn on the radio and catch the weekly news round-up from 1A on NPR — Roe v Wade, the January 6th attack... I decide to play some music instead. It's an old CD with worship songs from Woodland Hills, the church which was my refuge after you were born. I think of you.

I get to work and head to my first assignment. A boy about your age is getting his GJ tube changed in radiology, like you before the central line was placed.

I watch him on the table, the trach protruding from his neck. You would have needed one to live. I shudder. Would I want that for you? Would you have been comfortable with one? Probably not, but at least, perhaps, you would be with me still.

I watch the father get his son's equipment ready. He suctions him. He connects the tubing to the oxygen machine on the wall. He sets up the pulse oxymeter... and I think about your cares. I try to put myself in his shoes with a trach-dependent child. Would I really like to be in his shoes? 

Then I see him caressing his son's forehead, talking to him to soothe him. I imagine myself at the head of the table and think about what I would have said to comfort you and calm down your impatience. I see your arms flailing and your legs kicking and your head turning side to side with jerky movements as you vocalize high and low pitch sounds, which some may interpret as cries of excitement, but I know better.

The procedure is over. The tech starts chit-chatting and asks if they have any plans for the weekend. "Take care of ____," replies the father while he looks at me with a smile and a shrug as if to say, "What else?" I understand. He doesn't mind. The plans of a family like his, like ours used to be, are not the ones typical families make.

I say "good-bye" and go on to my next appointment. There's nothing there that reminds me of you. 

Now it's 4:00 p.m. I am sent over to the surgery department. The patient was born in 2010, like you, but does not have much else in common... except for a doctor. The kind anesthesiologist with the big clear blue eyes is in charge of this case. He worked with us only once or twice, Caleb, but he never forgot us. Of course, he knew me as an interpreter before he knew me as a mom.

"How are you doing? How is the family?"

"I'm doing okay, doctor. I don't know if you heard that my son died... He died in May of 2019."

"He died? In 2019? I'm sorry. That's why I haven't seen him around here."

"He caught a central line infection and..." I leave the sentence unfinished. There's no need to explain.

"I am so sorry I brought it up."

"Oh no, thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate people remembering and asking about Caleb."

I can't think straight anymore while interpreting. That's the only problem with being reminded of you this time. I half listen as I look at the doctor's compassionate eyes. That's all I can see in the frame created by the mask and his surgical hat. He is now focused on his current patient, but once upon a time, in one of these pre-op rooms, he spoke to me and your dad while you laid waiting to be rolled out to the OR. 

Now I feel empty, Caleb. And I want to cry.