All That I Need To Hold, I Can Carry

I went to retrieve her from her bedroom

for we needed to pick up my 6 year old at her play date.

We needed to leave.

But I find her limp, sprawled on her bed.

I find her in a pool of her own saliva.

I find her post-ictal which for those

not "in the know"

is a post-seizure state.

I know she will be unable to walk.

I sit her up to watch her flop,

her head lolls back like a Pez dispenser.

It's a fresh seizure

which occurred at some point

while I was downstairs,

oblivious

making the alfredo sauce for dinner

chatting with the 2 little ones

scampering across my toes

while my eldest lay alone

 fireworks blasting through her gray matter.

We need to leave

or I'd let her rest.

I'd rather not move her now

but life has a weird little tendency to

move right along

ignoring the minor and major catastrophes

it just keeps marching.

She's in and out of petit mal seizures,

like aftershocks following a large quake.

I will get her down the stairs and out to the car.

I will get her down the stairs and out to the car.

My mantra.

Alone, I will get her down and out to the car

because that's what mothers do. 

They just keep going.

They do what needs to be done

because it needs to be done

and who else will do it?

It needs to be done.

After attempts to have her walk by supporting her weight

fail

I try to carry her.

All 5 feet and 90 pounds of her.

We make it to the stairs and I have to set her down.

We both fold onto the floor.

I can't carry her down the stairs. 

Her legs are too long.

I'm not strong enough.

We sit on the landing, she crumbles into my lap.

I fight off my own crumbling. 

"Okay, buddy, we can do this, we're going to do this, I got you... we'll do it together... you and me together, just like always buddy.... I'm so sorry I have to take you out... I'm so sorry... I know you need to sleep..." 

I talk on and on to the mass of hair on the back of her head

and we slide down each step

she, half on my lap

as we slide down

each step

slowly

carefully

until

we stop on the landing

and I think maybe I should call my husband

maybe I should call the mother of the girl who Pink is playing with

and tell her I need help.

Ask her to wait.

Maybe my husband can get home or get Pink.

My other girls are waiting for me in the car.

I am doubting myself

I am flooding up with worry

and helplessness.

Because once I tell myself

"I can't do this"

then I can't.

I'm sweating.

My knee hurts.

No.

This is not impossible,

it's just not ideal.

But what, I ask, in life

is ideal?

 

I will do it.

I'm stronger than I think.

So we continue our fragile descent,

sliding on our bottoms

one tedious step at a time.

Sometimes it shows character to

ask for help.

But sometimes, you find the strength you never thought you'd have

when you don't call out to be rescued.

At that moment I needed to  know

that of all the things I can't do for her,

this I can.

We make it to the last step.

I gather her into my arms

like I did when she was a seizing infant.

I'm surprised that

she's not as heavy as I thought she'd be.

So I carry her with less effort than I imagined.
We make it to the car.
We make it.

Perhaps I'm stronger than I believed.

Perhaps even when I'm by myself,
I'm never truly alone.

Or perhaps a child never feels too heavy

for a mother's arms.