Did you ever have a memory from childhood come to you so vividly that you felt you were there again? Like reverse deja vu perhaps? Except as a parent, I could feel the parent's pain rather than the childhood pain I felt when it happened.
At age 5, I needed to have my tonsils removed. This involved traveling to Sydney to have the operation done by a specialist there. It's a 2 hr drive back in the day when a 2 hr trip was truly a trip. I remember being in the hospital, getting settled and being shown to my bed. It was huge room, perhaps called a ward at the time, I remember it having windows along the top of the wall, not at eye level. All around the room were beds, some separated by thin curtains. Across the room lay a boy named Ricky whose leg was suspended high in a sling and a girl his age was in a glassed off room to his left. All of these children were very content and friendly, they all talked to me when I came in the room with Dad and my nurse. My bed did not look so friendly. It was metal and sat very high off the floor and beneath it was tile. Not at all like the cozy nook I slept in at home, with the reassuring presence of my brother in the top bunk.
The nurses were bustling around getting this newest patient installed and I was blissfully unaware that my dad would not be staying with me in this place. That does not mean I wasn't told many times that he couldn't stay. I had my own way of processing information. My father was quiet, he still had to make the trip back home and it was getting close to time to say goodbye. Parents were not to stay at the hospital.
This vivid memory came to my mind one night recently as I lay in bed with Landon, watching him sleep and trying to understand and appreciate how blessed I am. My mind went to a couple who have been living at a children's hospital for two months, taking turns coming home, doing laundry, repacking and going back to live at the hospital with their sick son. I thought about the alternative of leaving the child in the hospital alone and visiting by day and it just seems like an impossible choice to have to make. It would break a parent's heart.
That night, at St. Rita's Hospital, I was traumatized when it dawned on me that my father had to leave. No nurse was going to tell me that I couldn't go home. Didn't she know that I went
everywhere with him? The other kids and the nurses all tried to convince me that this was okay and I would have fun here. My dad hung on, quietly reassuring me that he didn't want to leave me but that daddies couldn't stay in the hospital. The dreadful nurses urged him to leave. Reluctantly, my father left. I had a roomful of kids and a couple of nurses dedicated to cheering me up and by the time my dad walked out the hospital door and walked to his truck, I was warming up and relaxing.
I can only imagine the tears that fell as my father drove through Sydney, back out to the highway and on to Blues Mills. There were no cell phones, no nurse calling him to say "David, she's doing great, I think she actually likes it here." God bless you, Dad.
Not surprisingly, I did have a good time. I got to know Ricky who was in the sling, and I visited the play room to watch Sesame Street on tv for the first time. That playroom is where I was sitting the very next day when my dad showed up without me knowing he was coming. It turned out that I had a slight cough and the surgeon called off my surgery. I was going home. With my dad.
I am sure I have recalled this hospital visit before in the 32 years that have passed since, but I have never considered it from my parents' perspective before. I never had nightmares or bad memories stemming from it and it certainly did not undermine the trust I had in my parents. It makes me a little sad that I could have been more accepting of my plight and not made such a plea for dad, maybe make his life a little easier. But now I know that's how it feels to be a parent.
