Davis in his life vest, Rick and I plunging our heads beneath the sea and popping up to cause him to giggle. People tilting their heads as they watched Davis amble awkwardly up the beach back to our chairs. Davis hates to sit, so he pops back up and returns to the sea. One of us chases him down to stand beside him as he stares into the distance toward the island of Lanai. What does he know? I wonder what thoughts move through his simple mind. How I love holding his hand and feeling content with the ocean brushing up against our toes. Then our beach trips stop. His balance declines, he refuses to get off the couch or out of bed. His dizziness causes him to tip and we must hold him upright. Is he sick? Is his shunt failing? Should we return home immediately.
Three days before we are to depart for the mainland I hear a God-awful familiar thud just after feeding Davis breakfast in his bed. I leap from my chair and rush into his bedroom.
Oh my God, oh my God. Oh please help him, me, oh my God.
He stares toward me, perplexed by his position where he has fallen, blood behind him on the wall, on the sharp angle of the floorboard, on the floor, on his hands, blood. Oh my God. He reaches for me, I struggle to help him to his feet but cannot, his capacity to stand is gone and my ability to hoist him is not enough. We slide back down to the floor together, a streak of blood left on the wall from his head wound. I cannot look at the wound, not yet.
I pause, with him, draw in a breath to steady my thoughts. Is this a 9-1-1 call or do we take the trip to the ER ourselves once Rick returns from his run? Davis struggles once again to try to stand. I divert him by helping him over toward the bed. I pull, he crawls, I maneuver his body and he reaches out toward me to fix his world. Once near the bed I stand and like a crane I clamp my arms around his waist and with all I can muster I lift. He is limp and heavy. I lift again and again. Finally he is on the bed, blood now streaking up the sheets and circling his head on the pillowcase.
Okay. We wait for Rick. I pull over Davis’ Ipad closer and use a happy voice to calm us both down, to distract us from our predicament. We watch one of his cartoons together, and then another before Rick opens the door to the room and repeats my mantra—“Oh my God, oh my God. What happened?” He stares at the streak of red down the wall, then comes to Davis to look at the head wound.
“ER,” Rick says.
“I know.” I answer. I know.
So it’s been a tough summer. Each year I am reminded that summations are over-rated because life lifts and drops us in order to keep us engaged. Present. Purposeful.
Still, I could use a rest and perhaps even to be just a little bit bored. Please?
The Thirty-Third Child 