Not All Birthdays Are The Same
You can’t always tell all the ways you’ll affect your child as he grows up. Most of the time the things I worry about are not the things the older boys brings up in those moments before sleep—in that space between the end of the day and night.
Last week on the first day of spring, as has been tradition for the past 5 years, we headed out to the ocean in honor of Ike’s birthday. We were a bit late in going this year due to scheduling conflicts with Sweetie and my work, but it was actually all for the best. Ike wound up coming down with massive ear infections in both ears about a week before our trip and so it gave us some time to pump him full of antibiotics before heading out into the next winter storm to make its way along the coast this time of year.
That night Ike had a massive seizure causing him to vomit and spasm, and for about the next 30 minutes or so, Sweetie and I wondered just what the hell we were gonna do up there in Moclips, miles from a hospital on a Monday night, if he didn’t somehow snap out of it. The Older Boy had crawled under the dining room table when the whole thing started and had curled himself up into a ball. Ike’s seizures have started taking on a whole new dimension lately, causing him to smile and jerk like how you would imagine the Joker from the old Batman comics would have liked to have his victims killed—like Ike's a puppet attached to invisible strings—his face contorting into a smiling uncomfortable grimace.
It’s hard to watch.
Fortunately for us it didn’t last all night, and after it had mostly subsided, and the jerking had slowed to a small spasm now and then, I managed to extract the Older Boy from under the table and brought him over to the kitchenette to help me with the dishes. We stood there, the two of us, glad to be helping each other focus on something else while Sweetie got Ike ready for bed. There’s not much to say after watching something like that. After the Older Boy says that he hates watching Ike’s new seizures, and I say I hate watching them also, we stand there by the sink cleaning the counter and a few of the strawberries that we brought with us.
I’m sure I said Ike will be fine. I’m sure it rang as unsure and as powerless as it felt.
I guess time will tell if the Older Boy will remember any of this, and maybe in the end, I’m projecting myself and my own issues into the life of someone I love. But I fear that scars have already been cut—that there will never be enough hugs and words of reassurance to let him feel as safe as he did earlier on of that first day of spring—dozing in and out of the sun on that long winding drive out to the coast.
Last week on the first day of spring, as has been tradition for the past 5 years, we headed out to the ocean in honor of Ike’s birthday. We were a bit late in going this year due to scheduling conflicts with Sweetie and my work, but it was actually all for the best. Ike wound up coming down with massive ear infections in both ears about a week before our trip and so it gave us some time to pump him full of antibiotics before heading out into the next winter storm to make its way along the coast this time of year.
That night Ike had a massive seizure causing him to vomit and spasm, and for about the next 30 minutes or so, Sweetie and I wondered just what the hell we were gonna do up there in Moclips, miles from a hospital on a Monday night, if he didn’t somehow snap out of it. The Older Boy had crawled under the dining room table when the whole thing started and had curled himself up into a ball. Ike’s seizures have started taking on a whole new dimension lately, causing him to smile and jerk like how you would imagine the Joker from the old Batman comics would have liked to have his victims killed—like Ike's a puppet attached to invisible strings—his face contorting into a smiling uncomfortable grimace.
It’s hard to watch.
Fortunately for us it didn’t last all night, and after it had mostly subsided, and the jerking had slowed to a small spasm now and then, I managed to extract the Older Boy from under the table and brought him over to the kitchenette to help me with the dishes. We stood there, the two of us, glad to be helping each other focus on something else while Sweetie got Ike ready for bed. There’s not much to say after watching something like that. After the Older Boy says that he hates watching Ike’s new seizures, and I say I hate watching them also, we stand there by the sink cleaning the counter and a few of the strawberries that we brought with us.
I’m sure I said Ike will be fine. I’m sure it rang as unsure and as powerless as it felt.
I guess time will tell if the Older Boy will remember any of this, and maybe in the end, I’m projecting myself and my own issues into the life of someone I love. But I fear that scars have already been cut—that there will never be enough hugs and words of reassurance to let him feel as safe as he did earlier on of that first day of spring—dozing in and out of the sun on that long winding drive out to the coast.
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