Bruised and Battered

My 5-year-old son Max was accidentally hit with a golf club at his school's family picnic outing. He and some pals were playing miniature golf. All was fine one moment then somewhere around hole #7, he got smacked right near his eye socket, the kind of bruise Larry Holmes used to deliver when I watched boxing with my dad as a kid.

I was about 100 yards from Max when the putt-putt-pandemonium occurred, oblivious to all of it, watching his brother Lucas repeatedly conquer the playground slide.  It was a rare moment of semi-calm. Lucas was so proud and confident and free with each ascent and descent.  Then, suddenly there was Max, at my feet, crying through his multi-colored shiner, asking me to do one thing: "Hold me, mama."

His kindergarten teacher and I iced his wound and tried to make him laugh. "Pop Joe is going to think you were in a boxing match." It didn't work.

I told him about how I was hit in the nose once with a hockey stick during 6th grade gym class.  How one of my best friends hit me by accident. He was completely rapt in my story, asking questions, seeking commonalities between our accidental childhood face batterings. "Did it hurt really bad?"  Yep.  "Did it bleed?"  Yep. "Were you mad at your friend?"  Yep.  At first. But only for a little while.

As he asked me each question, I remembered the site of blood on the speckled linoleum floor in the school nurse's office, the agony of waiting for my mom, how much my pulse was pounding in my ears.

During Max's initial foray into this life, he's really taken his hits, metaphorically speaking.  Losing his dad is an undeniably formative, bitter and harsh fact for him, one that his life will always boil down to.  This new golf club bruise is seriously ugly, but so easy and simple to deal with by comparison.  Kid swings golf club.  Nearby kid gets hurt.  There's some crying and anger.  Then mmoents later, the two kids hug and are off to play and on day 3, the bruise is already looking a hell of a lot better.  To waive goodbye to your dad one morning only to be told several hours later that he is dead...that's a wound that doesn't fade magically as scabs form and colors change.

I want to thank the kid who accidentally got a bit overzealous with the golf club the other day.  He reminded me of my roles as ice pack holder, bandaid administrator, shoulder offerer, cuddler, reassurer, listener, question-answerer, and kindness offerer.  These roles are ever so important both when the bruises and scratches are full blown and fresh, and when they are internal, undetectable and continuously growing and morphing.