‘No Mother’ in the ER
OK, it’s becoming a weekend plan–burgers, fries, a quick, or perhaps not so quick, trip to the ER…
As many of you know, my husband’s grandmother has been staying with us for several weeks since her daughter “went abroad” for a spell. We honestly love having her with us. She has made the Great Depression come alive for my children at a time I believe it is important to remember what could be for us.
She has drawn elaborate family trees for my sons and described great-great grandparents, aunts and uncles in amazing details that have brought these ancestors alive.
She actually dragged out the Easy Bake Oven and helped my children bake three miniscule Crabby Patties in it–something I hardly ever do because of the mess and the stress over portioning out these tiny treats. (Why are they so blooming tiny???)
At 88, however, her health is decent, but a bit troubled. Yesterday, she sort of “fell out” in a kitchen chair and I took her blood pressure only to find it was quite high. Back to the ER for her. 6:30 on a Friday night. You wouldn’t think it would be so…so…so…
Well, let me just paint an ER picture for you.
A thin, bespeckled, bookish boy of perhaps seven or eight is curled up in a soiled chair, his thin legs dangling over the edge. He leans gingerly over a plastic Country Crock tub, repeatedly throwing up. He is ostensibly alone.
His grandfather (I guess?) sits nearby, ignoring him for the most part, and occasionally glancing disgustedly in his direction. All the strength that poor dear can muster is called on to raise his head to aim correctly at the “crock.” Several soiled towels and rags are clustered about his chair.
Each time he becomes sick the “grandfather” looks over at him and scowls. At one point the “grandfather” gruffly, perhaps drunkenly, addressed the packed waiting room: “Anybody got a dress we can put on this boy? This boy needs a dress! Look at him. The pansy.”
I boiled inside. I looked at him, made clear eye contact, and scowled angrily. Several older ladies in the room protested sweetly, but loudly. We looked at each other and sadly exchanged glances. Earlier in the night, I had shared my anti-bacterial hand gel with these kind ladies.
It was all Grandmama and I could do to hold back our tears. This poor forgotten boy sat in an ER waiting room with no one to comfort him. I seriously thought about going over to him…just to place a calming hand on his shoulder.
Yet I was afraid of the grandfather, afraid of bringing those germs home to an elderly woman and my own children. So I simply sat there and prayed that this child could feel an unseen hand gently rubbing his back.
Then things got worse.
His “mother” arrived in from a “smoke,” unlit cigarette in hand, three other children tagging behind and another woman, too. They wore filthy socks and no shoes…padding all over the streaked ER floor. It was clear that bathing was a foreign, or perhaps unavailable, concept; they clutched plastic bags of Cokes and candy. Everyone flitted about the ER, talking loudly, ignoring their poor, wretching son/brother.
Another man sat down next to the tiny boy, his arm bound tightly. A family member sat nearby. Suddenly the troubled man started up, ripped off his bandage, and blood spurted all over the chairs, the small boy, the floor. Mayhem ensued. Nurses were called; the man removed.
The poor, sick boy was jerked out of his chair by his mother who dragged him over to the only other available chair–two chairs down from us. His sister waved the dirty rags all about the ER, dancing to her own, hidden song, while germs peppered the air and the sick tried to avoid being hit.
Maintenance came in to remove all the soiled chairs, replacing them with nothing. People stood or leaned against walls.
My mind churned. The nurse said we had at least a three-hour wait to see a doctor, and with the blood pressure issue settled, she wasn’t sure what could be done for Grandmama.
A worried father rushed in with his four-year-old daughter, her hand tightly bound in clean, white towels. Her tawny curls spilled down his back as he spoke to her in concerned, hushed whispers. Her grandmother rushed in, sat next to me, and explained that the poor girl’s finger had been severed.
Nervously they waited. And waited. And protested. And waited. We prayed, and waited. Why wasn’t she rushed back to surgery? Why did a child have to wait like this?
I learned so many things during this night. Many of you are probably nodding your heads and saying what a sheltered life I have led. You would be right.
I also am so thankful God didn’t put this scenario before me when Sue was getting her chin stitched just three short weeks ago; he spared her three-year-old mind these troubling images, for which I am exceedingly glad. He did, however, allow me to glimpse into this world yesterday for several specific reasons that I realize now, and several more yet to come.
So often as I sat in that waiting room I thought of Kia’s fascinating posts of late regarding being a “good mother.”
Please do not think I am criticizing or judging this mother and grandfather. I have no idea what their life circumstances have been. I don’t know the pain they have faced, or the fires they have trudged through. I do know that little boy needed comfort and love, and there was nobody there to give it.
And that broke me in a certain strange way.
It reminded me of friends who either have or are in the process of adopting babies from orphanages all over the world. You see, I have tangentially understand these dear friends’ desires to adopt; yet until this night when I saw a child so needy, I never truly understood their fervor and drive.
Because if someone would have allowed me to scoop up this little boy in my already-burdened arms and take him home forever, I would have done it.
I would have signed the papers right then and there.
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