The Back of the Ambulance

Sometimes a parent just knows.

My husband demanded I hang up on the advice nurse:

“It doesn’t matter what she says, we’re going.”

My mom later told me she had never seen my husband move so fast.

We rushed our 9-month-old, Aaron, to the emergency room for high fever and extreme lethargy. Our rush ended when we hit unexpected traffic from a weekend festival. I sat in the back of the van with Aaron, listening to his breathing slow.

I tried not to cry, but I couldn’t help it.

“I need to pray.”

I leaned over Aaron, and just before I shut my eyes I saw my husband’s arm snake around the driver’s seat to reach me in the back. He held my hand tight and prayer flowed through us, incomprehensible, but given to God in the form of “please,” and “live,” and “not again.”

“Andy, I don’t know.... I don’t like this.”

“It’s really bad, he’s just... not right. This isn’t right.”

Then:

“Pull over. We have to call an ambulance.”

My husband pointed out that an ambulance wouldn’t actually get us there much faster.

“Yes, but they have things. Oxygen. Skills. CPR.”

He readily agreed.

When the ambulance arrived and the EMT let me ride in the back with Aaron, I knew Aaron would be okay.

Before that, during the drive, I knew God’s will would be done. Sometimes, though, that doesn’t bring the comfort one might expect. I know firsthand that God’s way is not always my way. That sometimes the path God has for us in this world is painful and full of sorrow. And that sometimes, the EMT won’t let you in the back of the ambulance, and that in those times, you don’t take your son home four hours later.

And that’s where my mind was as we sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic and I listened to Aaron’s ragged breath and watched his eyes glaze. As I put my cool forehead against his hot one and tried to get him to focus on me, to smile, and got nothing in return.

But when we waited on the street corner for the ambulance to arrive, the cool air blowing his hair, Aaron looked around. Smiled a little. Was aware enough to question where we were. He would be fine.

Later: a catheter, a blood draw, a failed IV. My back burned from holding Aaron down while the doctors and nurses did various things to prove him healthy. We ate horrible sandwiches and gave Aaron hospital formula that made him spit up for the next 24 hours. It was miserable.

But to hold those 24 hours, now going on 48, is a beautiful thing.

The first time, the time I didn’t get to ride in the ambulance, there was no blood draw. No catheter or failed IV. We followed from behind and noticed that after the first few blocks, the ambulance turned the siren off. Then the lights. Because there would be no 24- or 48-hours later. Just prayers and pleading. Our pastor looking at me with fear and defeat: “There’s nothing I can do.” This 6’5 man of God, ebony-skinned and deep voiced, stepping back and spreading his weighty but empty hands: “You can’t ask. There’s nothing to be done.”

But this time, just two short days ago, I came home with a stunningly robust 25-pound nine-month-old squirming in my arms. I sat him down and he played, ankle bracelet and gauze still in place. A little fussy, slightly worse for the wear, but breathing. Healthy. Alive.

So no, things don’t always go my way. But faith is not a crutch and life is not always easy. And right now, Aaron is napping. His sister is playing at Grandma’s and his big brother is somewhere doing big brother things. I will gladly take their health and happiness and tantrums and tensions. Even ambulance rides to the ER. Because at the end of the day, I am confident that these three will always come back home. Perhaps a bit beaten and bloody, but alive.

Sometimes a parent just knows.

The Youngest Athlete

I met my wife through little league, which is probably not where most people meet their wives.  And no, "little league" is not a euphemism for a seedy bar or okcupid.com.  We literally met through little league.  I was a coach, Collin was one of my players, and Jamie was a young mom who I thought was pretty good looking but assumed was much too old for me because of Collin's age until I realized I could just check and see for myself given that I had her son's birth certificate in a binder that I had to take to tournaments to prove I wasn't sneaking 15 year old's onto my team.  Which tells you about all you need to know about little league.

Collin was a pretty good baseball player when I met him, but he got a lot better as he grew bigger and played more.  When he was 11, the all-star team he was on won the state title, their run ending only because there were no more levels at which to compete (only the 12 year old's can play all the way to the Little League World Series).  I became heavily involved in the league, including the ridiculous politics intrinsic to a group of grown men who cannot bring themselves to admit that what they are doing is not, in fact, akin to either Major League Baseball or nuclear disarmament negotiations.

I wanted Collin to be good very badly, and luckily he wanted that for himself as well, so there was little conflict.  When he entered high school and began to be pulled in lots of different directions, I clung perhaps a little too long to our initial baseball dreams, causing a small amount of conflict in the process.  But when it was clearly time for Collin to move on, when the fun of the sport had been eclipsed by the pressure, the amount of singular dedication needed to succeed, and the ruinous influence of bad coaching, I thankfully realized that Collin's happiness was far more important than his baseball dreams.  We both miss it, but we're ok.

All of which gave me a lot to think about as my next two kids were born.  What sort of sports would they play?  Would I coach?  I got started with Rachel early, playing catch with her and teaching her complicated basketball plays.  She likes playing catch, but....how can I say this without regretting it later...she has other more highly refined skills.  She likes basketball for about five minutes at which point she likes lining up all the basketballs in order of size and having her stuffed unicorn sing songs to them.  Maybe one day she will be the first female shortstop in the major leagues.  Maybe.

Then Aaron came along.  I assumed he would have my level of athletic ability, which led me to a career high .238 batting average in little league and to a coveted 4th doubles spot on my high school tennis team (there are only 3 doubles pairs that actually play).  Or I assumed he would have my wife's athletic ability, which would mean we would be getting him interested in music at an early age.

But then he started growing.  At one point, he was literally off the charts: the doctor showed us the height chart for babies and then there, above where the chart ended, was an X for Aaron.  And then he started crawling about 2 months early.  And fast.  He can crawl all around the house in no time, forcing us to scramble after him, picking up dangerous objects, toddlers, and dogs in the process to clear a path.  He can stand too, sometimes for hours, a giant smile on his face.  I think he can throw a slider, but I don't want to mess his arm up this young.

So when we learned that there would be a 4th of July crawling contest at the local park, we got very excited.  First came the Facebook trash talk.  Aaron, we (I) claimed, was going to put on a show.  The only question was whether the trophy would fit on our mantle.  I started feeling a lot of pride, too.  My baby could crawl.  "That's my baby!" I would tell the other dads as they watched him destroy the competition on Independence Day.  "We work a lot on his crawling."

The day arrived, and the first thing that happened was that Aaron napped too early and would thus be ready for his second nap of the day just around the time the competition was set to begin.  When your child's athletic competition is impacted by a nap, that's the first sign that maybe you should not be taking the event too seriously, but this did not deter me from being excited.  He was all set to go in his flexible pants and his clean diaper, a goofy looking sun hat on his head to protect him from the sun, which he hates.  My child hates the sun.  That's the kind of gumption that makes a good athlete.

We also brought his stuffed penguin, which is a surefire way to make him crawl.  He sees it, he laughs hysterically, he crawls to it in about 3 milliseconds, he tries to eat it.  With Jamie at the finish line holding Penguin (Jamie is the only "thing" he likes more than Penguin), and the competition limited to a bunch of babies, I figured the victory was in the bag.  When Aaron tried desperately to crawl out of my arms before the race began, my optimism only increased.

Finally, it was time.

The race official yelled "go!"

Everybody watching went crazy with excitement.

And....none of the babies moved.  Startled by the loud noise of the crowd, they all froze up, sitting in place on their hands and knees.  Ten feet away, Jamie started waving Penguin frantically.  I urged Aaron on verbally, but was forbidden from helping him physically, a rule that says all you need to know about baby crawling competitions.  He didn't move.  The baby next to him, however, upon seeing a very attractive Penguin (we had even washed him for the occasion, so Aaron's dried drool was not present), started crawling about half as fast as Aaron crawls when he's tired, and covered the ten feet to Penguin quickly, winning the race.  Some other babies had started crawling a little bit by this point too.  Aaron never moved.  He finished last.

On the way home, I was struck by how differently I felt about Aaron as a result of his athletic failure.  Had he won, I would have hugged him and held him up and smiled at him and told him he was a super baby, the greatest crawler in history.  But seeing him sitting there on the crawling mat, a little confused, maybe a little scared, and a complete competitive failure, a very different parental emotion kicked in.  As I held him as we walked back to the car, his goofy hat still on his head, I felt an overwhelming sense of protection and love for my child.  The world is a big scary place where lots of things can go wrong.  I put him in his car seat, strapped him in, and smiled at him.  My baby.

The whole ordeal was exhausting.  We got home and my parental protection instincts overwhelmed by my desire to just collapse on a couch and watch baseball, I put my emotionally fragile, recently defeated little baby down on the ground rather than continuing to cradle him in my arms.  I flipped on the TV and turned on a game.

He crawled across the room in two seconds, pulled himself up to a standing position in front of the TV, and started smacking his hand against the screen.

Of course.