My daughter coughed in her sleep and my eyes opened. Still dark. Sitting up already on the couch, I thought (hoped?) that it had to be nearing morning as my eyes strained unsuccessfully to make out the hands of the clock on the fireplace mantle. Her legs were on top of my legs so I felt her twitch even though she slept. Her tongue clucked on the roof of her mouth. And she groaned. I knew she was going to vomit. Again.
She’d been sick all night. She was the third of my children to catch this awful flu.
I leaned towards her, my face just inches from hers. I didn’t want to wake her unless I knew for sure it was going to happen again. My six year old pursed her lips and groaned and I knew it was time. I placed my hand behind her head. “Come on doll, you’re going to get sick.” She woke slowly. Her eyes fluttered and widened and she looked at me questioningly. And then I saw her remember that she was sick. “Uggh,” she said. “Not again.”
“Sit up, doll,” I whispered and she leaned forward suddenly vomiting into the bucket I held in front of her. I pulled her hair from her face. We had our routine down. This was the sixth one of the evening.
We had taken to talking between her gasps. “It’s not sounding so good from over here,” I said lightly.
“It’s not looking so good from over here,” she said while looking into the bucket and I saw her half smile and look to me for recognition of her little joke. She constantly amazes me.
When she finished she sat back, wiping her mouth with a tissue I handed her. I trotted barefoot out of the room with the bucket and washed it out in the bathtub.
When I tiptoed back in she was almost already asleep in the dark. She heard me approach and she looked up at me. “I’m back” I said.
“I know,” she said sleepily, adding that she thought she was feeling better now.
“Good,” I said. She’d said that the past three times. I sat down next to her and looked at the mantle. It was 2:30 a.m.. We still had a long way to go. I knew because I’d been through it with the nine year old the night before. And the other six year old the night before that. 18 hours each. We still had four more hours to go. That’s just how long it takes.
Sitting on one end of the couch I tried to give her a little room but she stretched out and I felt her foot searching out my leg. Her toes touched me and she curled over, content.
“Hey,” I whispered. “Happy birthday six year old,” I said.
She opened her eyes slightly, tilted her head. Nodded. “Thanks.” Then she faded off to sleep.
I was thinking two things there in the darkness. One: God really made kids cute when they’re sick. Two: I felt so damn helpless. But sometimes, I guess, all we can do is hold the bucket. I’m starting to think that might just be the hardest part of being a parent. I don’t want to just hold the bucket. I want to make her better. Now. It’s her birthday, for goodness sake. But all I can do is hold the bucket.
And that’s the scary truth of it all. My daughters will suffer. My son will suffer. In this world, there’s no getting around it. I can’t stop that. I can teach them to pray. I can teach them there’s a loving God. I can teach them to offer up their suffering for the souls in Purgatory. But all of that won’t stop my children from being like every other person born on this Earth. They will suffer. And all I can do is love them. Let their toes touch my leg. Hold the bucket. Keep their hair out of their faces. It’s a very difficult lesson for a parent. I guess I’m still learning it.
Update: The six year old is better and she even had cake. Hooray.
But the three year old boy is sick and let me tell you it’s completely different. We sit on the piece of furniture my wife now calls the “sick couch” quite nicely together but each time the boy feels nauseous he inexplicably dashes from the couch and looks for a place to hide. When in pain he wants to be alone. So while he’s running like a Mammoth in search of his tar pit I’m running next to him with the bucket under his maw. Fun. The moment he’s done he goes back to the couch where he pulls the tag on his blanket between his thumb and his forefinger repeatedly, endlessly until he falls asleep again.
December 12, 2008 at 4:29 am
Having just completed washing the carpet for the umpteenth time after my kids finished being sick (they were working both ends against the middle) I can readily identify.
Yep, all we can do is pray and hold the bucket.
December 12, 2008 at 11:59 am
Lovely post. Having worked a crisis line for battered women, I understand the frustration that it’s all you can do. I hope whatever that nasty bug is going through your house is over soon – that sounds terrible.
December 12, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Your post rather strongly reminds me of this essay by Peter Kreeft, in particular the following:
“He came. He entered space and time and suffering. He came, like a lover. Love seeks above all intimacy, presence, togetherness. Not happiness. “Better unhappy with her than happy without her”—that is the word of a lover. He came. That is the salient fact, the towering truth, that alone keeps us from putting a bullet through our heads. He came. Job is satisfied even though the God who came gave him absolutely no answers at all to his thousand tortured questions. He did the most important thing and he gave the most important gift: himself. It is a lover’s gift. Out of our tears, our waiting, our darkness, our agonized aloneness, out of our weeping and wondering, out of our cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” he came, all the way, right into that cry.
In coming into our world he came also into our suffering. He sits beside us in the stalled car in the snowbank. Sometimes he starts the car for us, but even when he doesn’t, he is there. That is the only thing that matters. Who cares about cars and success and miracles and long life when you have God sitting beside you? He sits beside us in the lowest places of our lives, like water.
…
Withness—that is the word of love.“
The full essay is worth reading.
God Bless,
Ryan
December 12, 2008 at 1:48 pm
A lovely post, Matthew, though I’m sorry your little ones are so sick. When mine were that age I wished we could be hermits from mid-October through about March, to keep them from contracting bugs like this.
Once long ago when my whole family was sick (and my children were 2 and 1 with baby sister on the way) my husband and I were trying to take care of the little ones while wanting to die, ourselves, which is never fun. Anyway, I woke up with a start in the middle of the night to see a light on in the bathroom. Getting up gingerly and expecting to have to clean the bedroom and hallway carpet and change sheets, I found my oldest girl asleep on the bathroom rug. I woke her and asked anxiously if she was okay.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I spit in the potty.”
There was no mess anywhere. This tiny child woke up without me and took herself to the bathroom to be sick, without waking us or her sick baby sister or anybody else. It still amazes me to think about it, but she was that way from then on, and still is–just accepting illness and dealing with it as an irritating but normal part of life.
We think we’re teaching our kids about life–but half the time they’re teaching us.
December 12, 2008 at 1:52 pm
That was beautiful.
Watching a child suffer is the most sublime suffering. My oldest daughter is expecting her first child and I suffer knowing that any suffering of her child will make her suffer. And so it goes. Parenthood has plenty to offer up!
December 12, 2008 at 4:39 pm
The growth of every parent happens in those moments. I remember holding my son when he was an infant and sick for hours and hours one night. He would not sleep unless being held while I walked around that night. After about 3 hours, he woke up, spit up on me all down my back, and I started crying. Not because I was angry or frustrated, but I knew that God had brought me to a place where I was learning what love truly was.
December 12, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Thanks for the post Matthew. My wife has been having some insomnia issues, and she feels it is causing her to fail somewhat with taking care of our kids. I am going to make sure that she reads your post; it is a testament to the faultiness of our perception of control.
On another note: Marcel’s post is not extremely telling. He is prone to cry.
December 12, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Prayers for you and your family! You really hit the nail on the head. Nights like these are silent nights of prayer for parents: nights changing sheets for an anxious 3 year old who tells you “I spit my noodles!” nights holding a cool washcloth and chopping ice with a meat tenderizer, nights on couches, cots, or all tangled in one bed, nights in emergency rooms. Nights with the tv on or with it off, nights with a rosary dangling from tired fingers, or just patting little sweaty backs are all nights of prayer when you’re the parent.
God bless you!
December 13, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I have lived through labor times 6 – the last time it was horrendous, have lived through fighting for the life of one of my sons, and complications with three of my children – but just yesterday I thought that labor is nothing compared to what’s coming, it really isn’t no matter how hard labor is.
I am praying a lot these day….
Mum26
December 14, 2008 at 1:24 am
I wanted to add to my previous post and deeply thank you for sharing your story!
After confession, and at rosary tonight the full extent of “holding the bucket” became obvious to me — this is the Christian principle, isn’t it?
Isn’t this essentially what Our Blessed Mother had to do? “Hold the bucket?” Without her willingness to suffer along with Her Son, His sacrifice would have been a totally different story.
I understand now the call to continuous prayer: it is like “holding the bucket” – imagine the mess without prayer (the bucket)….
Thank you again, and it is my deep hope that by now your children have recovered and are enjoying all the cake their little tummies can hold.
Blessings, Mum26
December 14, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Very nicely written. This is something so many of us can relate to. Thank you for your lovely reflections. Hope everyone is better soon.