angelawd

When Jessie was a baby, I took her to the Public Health Clinic for all her immunizations and checkups. I’d spend hours in a room with a couple hundred other mothers and their wailing, screaming, shouting, jumping children waiting for our numbers to be called. Yep, you actually took a paper number tag, like at the DMV. And just like the DMV, the number-caller would shout out the number twice, and if you had the misfortune to not be able to hold your pee for three hours and happened to be in the bathroom when they called you, they’d cross you off and you’d have to go to the back of the number line.

While I sat in that dirty room with peeling wallpaper and tried not to breathe the mixed aroma of armpits and dirty diapers, I’d start to get nervous and teary about what was ahead of us. A stranger was going to poke and prod Jessie and then she was going to get at least one shot somewhere, and I knew that the shot would be the greatest pain she’d ever experienced and I was the one who brought her here for that pain.

I felt the same way this week as I waited with her in the surgical room until the dentist was ready to rip all four of her wisdom teeth right out of her head. Her little baby head. Um…no, she’s 21, and too old to hold my hand, even though I wanted her to. Thing is, I have had my wisdom teeth out. I remember the pain that she was about to feel. The separation of this non-painless moment from the painful future days was a huge burden to me. I knew that even with anesthesia you still can remember some things, such as how I clearly remembered hearing/feeling a tremendous CRACK when they pulled one of my teeth from the bone. I remember the days of pain and your inability to keep from sticking your tongue back there to see how things were healing…and how much that hurt, too.

But Jessie’s surgery went fine, even though they found several abcesses. She allowed me to care for her all day in her own apartment, making her Chicken and Stars soup like when she was little, and letting me wipe off her face when she vomited from the anesthesia and numbness. A couple of days later, she’s doing well and not needing me anymore. Sigh.

When I was Jessie’s age, I’d just had a C-section to deliver her. I came home to a very childlike husband who stayed home only one day with me, and in-laws that hated me and never came to visit or help. I yearned for my family that lived across the country or at least a friend that could come and help me. I managed my healing and learning to be a mother all alone, without the casseroles friends make, without the mom or mom-in-law caregiving visits, without a husband who cared about my progress in healing from surgery, only caring about when he could get laid again.

And here’s another reason why I am completely and utterly blessed as a mother. I was able to be with my daughters in their pain, as much as they needed me. These past two weeks of surgeries have given me a chance to care for my daughters as a child should be cared for, regardless of the age of that child. Again, I’m thankful.