Survivors

Yesterday my youngest granddaughter got a mild sunburn and her 2-year-old sister rolled up the car window on to her tiny pointer finger.  Dad had to release said finger from window's grip. 

Forgive me, but that made me smile.  But only after I heard they had survived.

Life and death is the daily norm for little kids, toddlers especially.  It's where they live.  Adults can't be expected to prevent every single injury.  Impossible. 

I was talking about this recently with a father of boys, 4 and 2 years old.  He said he was pushing both sons on swings, side-by-side, a lovely fatherly image.  Without warning, the 4 year-old takes FLIGHT, crashing to the ground.  He's scraped up pretty good, but mostly scared.  After his son calms down, his father asks what happened.

"I let go."

Yep.  That's what I'm talking about.  An adult cannot foresee accidents like that happening because the boundaries of toddler reasoning are limitless.  And that reasoning has nothing to do with reality. No basis in fact because these kids haven't the life experience to put two and two together.   The little boy told his father he wanted to get off the swing, so he let go.  Makes sense to a toddler, never mind that he's got a 5-foot drop to the ground.

Adorable, but only because he survived. 

I understand, sadly, that there are accidents with tragic results.  For the most part, however, the millions of times our kids get hurt, they survive.  We kiss their boo boos, slap on a bandage, offer ice packs and hugs.  It's a sweet part of childhood - sweeter maybe after time has soothed adult nerves and diminished adult guilt.

I admit my kids could tell a few tales.  They survived a good number of hits and near misses.  Some day I should add up the number of broken bones and concussions among my three children.  Not.  I will say John wins the Most Times Hospitalized award. 

Enough time has elapsed for me to share (confess) an incredible story of a gigantic calamity averted.  It's one of the "kid" stories I wrote about in a letter to my parents, letters my mom kept and returned to me a couple of years ago.  So, here's a paragraph, an eye-witness account, from my letter dated 1991.  The kids were ages 5, 7, and 9. 

"I'll quickly tell you this week's hair-grabbing event.  My three kids plus the neighbor's two (ages 5 and 2) were all in the playroom when John innocently threw a large plastic ball up in the air, hit the center screw on the glass light cover, broke the center screw, the glass cover falls in one piece on top of John's head (he's looking up as it falls on him), the cover shatters, Andrea and Jenny huddle covering their heads reflexively.  All my children take hits, only John is bleeding slightly on his arm.  There are glass slivers and chunks all over the room.  Paul and I carry all the children out.  The 2-year-old had been sitting in the closet.  ...I am plucking white hairs as I write this.  I don't want to have to tell this story again, it's too scary."

I guess it's taken me 21 years to tell this story again.  I still recall the event.  I can still see the light fixture fall on my son, his hard head shattering it and then ... they survived.  Just as my granddaughters will survive their injuries as well as many more to come. 

P.S. About that horrible event in '91, all 5 kids were OK, including John.  He thought he might be in trouble for breaking the light fixture.  Adorable.  He wasn't.  In fact, the kids really took it well.  Paul and I were wrecks.  Not too long after, Jenny broke her wrist falling off the teeter-totter playing "Hot Lava" at that same neighbor's house.  I kinda figured that made us even.