My son was born under the sign of the fish, and, from the first,
he showed an affinity for water. As an infant, Brendan loved baths
-- the longer, the better. Once he learned to swim, he moved fearlessly
and gracefully through the water as though it were his true home.
Now that he is 8, he spends long hours fishing and beachcombing.
His latest haul includes the barnacle-encrusted carapace of a
Dungeness crab, two large strands of kelp and half a dozen oyster
shells, stored in an empty shoebox, smelling of salt and the memory
of water.
Brendan's body -- like that box filled with shells and wrack
-- also recalled a watery existence. He was born with a congenital
condition that had its roots in the closest things humans have
to gills. Branchia -- Greek for gills -- are embryonic
structures that resemble the gills found in fish and amphibians.
They first appear in the fourth week. As the embryo grows, the
branchial clefts become the building blocks for parts of the head
and neck, curling inward and essentially disappearing by the embryo's
sixth week of development. In Brendan's case, this process was
only partially completed. At birth, he had an inconspicuous opening
on his neck that was connected to an underlying branchial cleft
cyst. Once I learned what this opening was, I liked to think of
it as a remnant gill.
During the first years of our son's life this cyst was unobtrusive.
Days, weeks and even months went by without either my husband
or myself giving it much thought. Our family doctor caused a momentary
panic at Brendan's first-year checkup when she mentioned -- in
passing -- that occasionally such cysts are associated with deafness.
But the panic passed. Brendan was perfectly aware of all the sounds
of his life.
By the time he was 5, however, the opening of the cyst had become
the source of a pale green mucus-like discharge that, although
rarely occurring in large amounts, was noticeable. We were concerned
enough to consult a pediatrician and then an ear-nose-and-throat
specialist. Brendan also seemed anxious to find a solution for
what had become an embarrassment. The specialist recommended surgery.
My husband and I didn't make a decision right away. First we
talked. We discussed the continuing health risks of leaving the
cyst untreated. It certainly wasn't a life-threatening condition,
but the possibility of it becoming infected concerned us. Then
there were the social considerations. Children can be notoriously
intolerant of difference. I never wanted a perfect child, but
I disliked the thought of Brendan being ridiculed -- or even noticed
-- for a physical peculiarity he couldn't disguise. These were
the sorts of things we discussed between appointments with the
specialist.
The risks associated with surgery caused us to hesitate the most.
We were reassured when the specialist explained that the procedure
was normally minor enough for the patient to be released on the
same day. We knew, however, that all surgery is risky, even "minor"
surgery. The possibility that Brendan might die was very small
indeed, but it wasn't zero. In the end, we decided -- with some
continuing reservations -- that the risks were acceptable enough
to proceed.
We arrived at the hospital on a clear autumn morning. Brendan
was apprehensive but alert. He held onto our hands and also grasped
a soft brown-and-white stuffed cat named Buddy.
"See," I told Brendan, as we strolled down the hospital halls,
"this is where you were born." Trying to convince myself as much
as him, I added, "Everything will be fine."
In the surgical ward a nurse helped him change into a pair of
blue pajamas that sported friendly hound dogs. Then both he and
Buddy were given identification bracelets. Brendan's was yellow
with his full name printed on the narrow plastic-coated band;
Buddy's read, "I'm Buddy the cat."
As we go about our day-to-day lives, we are able to maintain
the fiction that we have the power to keep our children safe from
all harm, to control all outcomes. But it is fiction, a story
we tell ourselves to carry on with the many responsibilities of
parenthood. Events can suddenly jolt us into an awareness of our
children's vulnerability. There are times -- perhaps more times
than we care to admit -- when what happens depends not upon a
parent's love but on luck and the competence and kindness of strangers.
Brendan's surgery was such an occasion. We had to trust to the
abilities of a man we had met only twice. Trust doesn't come easily
to me when it concerns my only child. As Brendan was wheeled off
to the operating room, clutching Buddy, I wanted to run after
the gurney yelling, "Stop! I've changed my mind," but I didn't.
Instead, I took my husband's hand and walked -- with pounding
heart -- to the waiting room.
* * *
Other separations lurch at us unexpectedly out of otherwise uneventful
days. Earlier this year, Brendan and I traveled by bus and Skytrain,
Vancouver's elevated rapid transit line, to the dentist. Afterward,
we went to a toy store where he bought a new action figure. Normally
I hold my son's hand in crowded public places. This evening when
it was time to get back on the Skytrain, the hand I usually held
contained a toy. I hurried into the car, assuming Brendan was
right behind me, only realizing in horror -- just as the door
slammed shut -- that he was on the other side. As the train began
to pull away from the station, I could see my son -- through the
glass of the door -- running and crying. Then we were moving and
he was gone.
"Help!" I think I called out, or, perhaps, "Stop!" There can
be few worse feelings than the visceral fear a mother experiences
knowing that her child is alone, among strangers. Whether he was
rescued or abducted, whether we would ever see each other again,
was out of my hands. I spent the next moments -- perhaps all of
two or three before the train stopped at the next station -- in
an agony of anxiety. Parents are not superhuman; they can make
mistakes. I understand that in an intellectual way. Yet contemplating
how such a small lapse in attention and judgment could have had
such serious consequences still, months later, makes me queasy
with guilt.
* * *
The two hours in that hospital waiting room felt nearly as desperate
as those minutes I spent speeding away from my son on the train.
Both separations had different causes, but both consigned me to
the painful limbo of waiting to see how things would turn out.
There was nothing I could do to affect the outcome, nothing to
do but wait. Wait and think and pace and pray. At least I think
you could call the request that things go well, which I kept repeating
in my mind, a prayer. The surgery was expected to take about an
hour. It occurred to me, in my anxious state, that it might have
been better if I were a smoker. It would give me something to
do. I bought a can of pop from a nearby vending machine, even
though I don't like pop, just to have something to do. In between
drinking the pop and leafing through magazines that I couldn't
read, I held my husband's hand and looked at my watch, where time
was plodding along hopelessly slowly. Neither of us had much to
say. As the hour stretched into an hour and a half, then two,
I paced more and talked less.
* * *
Brendan was rescued by a Skytrain security guard who radioed
ahead to the next station to tell me to wait there while he brought
Brendan up.
"Tell the mother that we have the little man," he told the woman
working at the next station, the woman who met me when I came
rushing off the train with tears streaming down my face. I know
this because Brendan, who was wedged against me, gripping my hand
like a vice, repeated this phrase again and again as we rode the
train home. The surge of relief I felt when he came into sight
was the same way I felt when a nurse finally walked into the waiting
room and called our names. My heart unclenched as we followed
the nurse down the hall to where Brendan lay in the recovery room.
His face was flushed from the anesthesia and there was a small
streak of blood on the collar of his hound dog pajamas. I reached
over and gently touched him -- my son, still here.
Time passed. Brendan regained consciousness and was checked
into a room in the pediatric ward; he wouldn't be going home that
night after all. The surgery had taken longer than expected, and
he was in quite a bit of pain. At first, he cried out with discomfort
-- he didn't like the IV in his arm, lying in bed or being at
the hospital. He wanted to feel better; he wanted to go home.
Finally, he fell into a heavy sleep, and I sat beside the bed
and watched his chest rise and fall. It was a wonderful sight.
I couldn't help but think about the first days of his life. Then,
each breath seemed both extraordinary and tenuous -- something
I couldn't completely count on even as it enthralled me. Sitting
in that hospital room, the breath that I had come to take for
granted had become momentous again.
* * *
The week that followed crept by. Back at home
Brendan developed a fever and woke crying in the night, hot
and in pain. We were on the verge of taking him back to the
hospital when the fever abated. Lethargy came next. Brendan
lay on the couch, watching cartoons when he was able to muster
the energy, sleeping when he couldn't. Smiling took an effort;
play was impossible. Finally, on a rainy afternoon more than
a week after his surgery, Brendan seemed ready to return to
the world.
"Can we go to the park?" he asked. "Please, Mom, please. We
could play soccer."
Outside, the clouds were lifting, but there was no sun. At the
park the trees were shrouded in mist and the grass was studded
with puddles. Back and forth we ran, kicking the soccer ball into
a makeshift goal. The air was cool and moist, and the park was
quiet with only an occasional walker or jogger passing on the
nearby path. Before long, Brendan began to tire. Even though he
was recovering, soccer took more energy than he had.
"Let's go over to the playground," I suggested.
He agreed, and so we walked along the path to a small playground
with a slide and some swings, where he went down the slide and
then climbed up the slide. Soon the knees of his pants were wet
with rainwater, and he stopped sliding to explore the small creek
that ran along the boundary of the playground. Naming it creek
was a generous interpretation, but its thin flow seemed too lovely
for ditch, and if you looked carefully in its shallow waters you
could sometimes find a crayfish or water strider.
"Mom, look," Brendan called as he picked up a slim, black stick
about 2 feet long. "It's a karate stick!"
He held the stick carefully in his hand and suddenly lifted
it over his head and spun it around and flung it across the creek.
"Let's play karate sticks," he said.
I had no idea what he knew about karate, but that didn't dampen
his enthusiasm for his newly created game. He chose a stick for
me from a nearby maple tree and showed me how to spin the stick
around before flinging it through the air with a flick of the
wrist. Some throws flew through the low-hanging-branches of the
maple. Others soared 10, 20, even 30 feet before landing with
a soft thump on the grass, much further than I imagined a 5-year-old
boy could throw a stick, even a karate stick. A few throws ended
in disgrace in the creek, landing with a splash in the shallow
water.
As we played karate sticks, the sun came out from behind the
clouds just in time to set. Afternoon shifted to evening, and
the last glimmer of light shone on the maple leaves floating golden
in the creek. Bats twittered in the darkening sky, and once a
woman walking a groomed white standard poodle loomed out of the
dusk. Mostly, though, it was just Brendan and I throwing sticks,
jumping across the creek to retrieve them, and laughing.
My husband and I hadn't talked much to Brendan about the operation
-- in truth, we were too exhausted for talk, taken up with the
physical aspects of caring for a sick child. That afternoon, however,
Brendan and I had a conversation without words, filled with the
relief and exuberance of returning health. For the first time
since we drove to the hospital, I felt as though I could catch
my breath. My son was alive and well, all was right with the world.
The euphoria of this knowledge suffused that autumn afternoon.
We played karate sticks until the sun set and the first drops
of rain began to fall and we could no longer see where our sticks
had landed in the dark, wet grass.
"Let's go home," Brendan said.
And we did, carrying our karate sticks with us. We placed them
carefully beside the front door of the house, and for a long time
afterward I would pause and pick one up and heft it in my hand,
inhaling the scent of wood. The karate sticks are gone now to
wherever the lost treasures of childhood go, and Brendan's surgical
scar has faded to a thin line of silver engraved on the warm pink
skin of his neck, but the happenings of that week are fresh in
my mind. Even now, I still think about how much we can learn in
the simplest of moments about what it means to be a parent and
of the nature of love.
When Brendan and I got off the Skytrain, we discovered that
the bus was late. As we stood at the bus stop in a light rain,
a chill wind came up and we began shivering. Normally, I might
have been irritated about having to wait, about being cold. None
of that mattered now. I could have lost my son, but I didn't.
Gratitude for that fact imbued even the cold cheerless bus stop
with warmth. It felt like a blessing to stand in the rain, holding
Brendan's hand, while cars -- and buses not ours -- passed by
along the gleaming night streets.
* * *
Angela Wheelock lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is working
on a novel.
(October 2003)
