“Look, mom!”

The physical therapist fairly crows as I walk into BoyChild’s room.  I struggle to take in the scene before me, one radically different than what has become routine. BoyChild is sitting on the edge of the bed. He is--SITTING! 

I feel slightly nauseous at this sight. I fight the urge to sink to my knees as I stare. My child is sitting up for the first time in almost two weeks. He is unstable, he must be supported, but he is sitting up. There is a boy in there!  

I rush to the other side of the bed so that I am in front of him. My excitement falls as I see that he is still not really there. His body is responding, perhaps automatically, as he is held and molded into an upright position. His eyes... are vacant. He looks at me without recognition, without comprehension. He is a dog whose butt has been pushed to the ground while someone says, Sit.

I join the celebratory voices of the physical therapists but I hear the echo in my ravaged soul. God dammit, why am I not happier? Why do I have to spoil this with fear?  The physical therapist lay him back down on the bed and then leave. I look at him in this stillness. The brief exercise of sitting up has worn him out. BoyChild is sleeping. I take him in with my eyes. Again I note that how the severity of his condition is denied by his body, this body that may or may not work again. This body that may or may not contain my son. 

Returning to the ICU waiting area, I report with false cheer this improvement. A part of me wishes to vomit my fear but instead I perform in good measure. Yes, it is good news and yes, it does signal progress. But what if he is not there? What if he can learn to feed himself, even use a walker, what then? WHAT THEN?  I feel my anger and fear rise together. There is no way to know what will happen, there is only what we have now. 

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BoyChild responds to the command of the occupational therapist to put on his socks.  He takes the sock handed to him and reaches for his foot with the sock in hand. His foot and hand do not meet but BoyChild works nonetheless. His eyes are open but his gaze seems to stop at the place where his body meets the external world. Still, he struggles with apparent intent. 

We are tense as we watch these actions. The desire to help him is palpable as we force ourselves to let him work on this problem.  His hand reaches, misses, reaches, finally reaches his foot. The limp sock drapes across his foot. His eyes focused internally, he manages to loop the end of the sock across his big toe.

He grins.

We applaud.

My heart swells to see his grin. He knows he has accomplished something, although I doubt he knows what.  But here is what I know now: his grin shows me something of who he was before. His grin shows me the showboating side of my son that has been present since birth. Like a toddler who has the adults around him laughing and he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care. He only cares that people around him are showing love and affection.

Is there much more than that to life? Really?

This is part of a series. For the last post, click here.

For the beginning of the series, click here.