Fear of Heights

We don't do falling off ladders.

Not since the weekend, when Nathan's ladder slipped on the slick deck, and he fell tumbling to the ground, with me sitting right there, watching. Slow motion. Giant baby. Falling. Back and then head whiplashed to ground.

Then he's turning to me and yelling mom mom mom in that desperate way. My tooth. My tooth.

I am holding his head. Your tooth is okay. You just had a hard fall.

Am I paralyzed, he is frantic, and the pain is going to get bad, and I have to get him some motrin.

All this sounds quiet and methodical but really it was surging with horror.

Time stops. A minute ago we were just sitting outside and he was wondering if he should put on sunblock. We were sitting by the pool and he was puttering around fixing something on the roof with his little cousin. They are always safe. Nathan is pretty safety conscious. It was just an accident.

Days later now. Emergency room visit. Doctor niece there with us who knows all the questions to ask, and is also just a loving family member. There because it's her family.

Nathan is okay, she's telling me. Cousins are there with pizza. Lilly is there, 9 years old, and sitting with us just quietly sitting with us in the curtained off room next to bowel obstruction and lady barfing.

Sometimes you're in a boat you don't want to be in, and one of your children is wearing a hospital gown and has a concussion. And a bruised kidney. And he's not on the basketball team and he wants to be. So a bruised sad heart.

But he is still tall and willowy and alive and strong and his neck hurts and he's here because he can't go anywhere or do anything else ever. Okay he can do some stuff.

In the car going to the e.r. with his dad I reached in the window and said you're so important, Nathan. And both of us getting teary.

Nathan's okay.