Nothing can prepare you for something like that, let alone as a parent. Time stood still.
My brain was going in so many directions at once. My body felt like it was shutting down in a panicked state, but on the outside I was calm, doing everything I needed to do to take care of him.
And then we waited.
We held his hand and told him we loved him while we waited for answers. In that moment, I thought that once we had answers, once we understood the extent of the injury, I would finally be able to breathe again.
But the reassurance came, the doctor saying, “he is hurt, but this is something he can recover from,” and the relief didn’t come the way I thought it would…
I still couldn’t separate the past from the present.
I kept replaying those moments over and over in my head. At first, it was almost like my brain wouldn’t let me go all the way there. It would start to, and then stop.
But as time went on, that changed. It got harder to stop those thoughts once they started, and they began showing up more often, even in moments that should have just felt normal.
A sudden visceral response. A drop in my stomach, feeling like I can’t catch my breath, nausea, no appetite. A sense of anxiety in everyday situations, or sometimes from nothing at all.
I knew the moment would stay with me, but I didn’t know how much it would take over.
I didn’t know I could be sitting there with my baby in my arms, holding his hand, feeling his heart beating against mine, and at the exact same time feel like I lost him.
That part is hard to explain unless you’ve felt it.
He looks at me the same way he always has and reaches for me like nothing has changed, and that’s the part that hurts me the most.
I feel the weight of thinking I failed him, while at the same time he looks to me for comfort and finds it immediately, collapsing into my arms and taking a deep breath like it was all he needed. He smiles and says “mama” in the happiest voice the second I walk into view, and I feel immense guilt that I didn’t protect him.
He is happily living in the present, completely forgotten about the past that I feel jailed in. Smiling, playing, content. And I am showing up for him in the present as his calm, safe landing place, while my mind keeps pulling me back to the past at the same time.
Every morning I wake up feeling like it was a nightmare, and then quickly realize this is our reality, and I have to process it all over again.
From the outside looking in, it’s confusing because it looks like everything is okay. It looks like we are moving forward, smiling, healing, cheering on our daughter at soccer, laughing and playing with new toys, but we are doing all of those things because we have two kids who need us to show up and be brave for them.
Driving down the road with tears streaming down my face, while having a full conversation with my toddler about our favorite parts of Frozen number 1 versus Frozen number 2, answering her, engaging with her, laughing with her.
That’s what this feels like for me right now, living in the present while simultaneously stuck in the past.
My mind is simply unable to shut off from the replay, trying to understand what happened and how it could have happened... even though I know I will never have a clear answer.
My body holding on tight to my sweet boy, feeling his heart beating, his toes wiggle, his fingers gripping around mine, knowing many aren’t as lucky.
This is part two of three.