under surveillance

We were on our way home from meeting and stopped briefly to pick up a pizza. As Gordie was inside paying and enjoying a complimentary slice, a patron who was parked beside us misjudged the length of our truck and backed into it as he left. We felt the truck budge a bit and noticed the man pulling back into his parking spot beside us.

As both he and I emerged from our cars he already had his cell phone out, camera activated and says to me "I just hit your vehicle", followed immediately by "Look how you parked!!"
Me: "Excuse me?"
He: "Look how you parked- why didn't you park in the lines?"
Me: "We parked next to you and another truck who wasn't parked in the lines. And you have a responsibility to not drive into another car!"
He softens up a bit and says: "We have to exchange information."
Me: "I'll get mine, but take it easy- you are going to have to be nice."

At this point I could see there was just a scratch on our truck and his car had a 8" wide dent in the back quarter panel. I figured we wouldn't be doing anything about the damage but wanted confirmation from Gord. At this point I exchange places with Gordie- I pay for the pizza and he deals with the cranky responsibility shirker. On my way in to the pizza shop the guy says "Sorry I snapped at you." I say something like "it's okay, I know you are stressed out" and go in to the pizza shop. When I came out with the pizza he and G. have done all the necessary whatever and I get in the car as he again says "I am really sorry I was rude." Again, I accept his apology and tell him not to worry about it. When Gordie got into the car he asked me what the guy had just said.  So I tell him the history of the communication between me and the guy and end with the final apology and a summary of my response to it. Then Landon pipes up and says "Actually what Mom said was "Don't worry about it, I'm a big girl, I can handle it." I laughed so hard at that because then I remembered that was exactly what I said. 

A couple with small children doesn't need a surveillance camera  to monitor what is being said and done. There are little eyes and ears that watched and listened to all my interactions with the man who hit into us- and will learn from whatever I model.  That is the part that challenges me and makes me go back over the incident in my mind. I feel like I dodged a bullet. 

That's how it Feels to be a Parent

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.