Going Down

That night, the snow fell incrementally until we had accumulated a dozen inches. Mark had spent four hours on the road, arriving home exhausted. I could barely hold off dinner, I had attempted to make pot stickers and could not contain my joy at having partially succeeded.

But inch by inch, the snow continue. Six inches were piled high before we sent the kids out to shovel, encouraging them to do it now, or be sorry in the morning. Or that Mark would not be able to leave in the morning. As as doc, he was an emergency responder, unable to ignore the emergency alerts scrolling across the TV each night. Mark continued to encourage me to tell the kids, but I didn’t want to spend the next snow day while they fixated on a new puppy, pestering me with all sorts of questions that I would not have an answer for.

I snuck out for lunch the next day with one of my girlfriends, fending off 10 inches of snow. This was snow day number 5 and it would prove to be eventful. Following lunch I decided I needed to go to the post office and drop off the deposit for the thing, as we say in a whisper around the kids. I tossed a few envelopes into the mailbox at the post office and swore I was not in my right mind. Lucky for me, because as I was considering turning the opposite direction of home more towards kohls and Target, my phone rang. It was Jen Vezdos on the phone. “Davis hurt himself sledding, and he is not getting up.”

Now, I’ve known D to be somewhat melodramatic in his day. Last summer, after making a dive for a missed catch in center field, one of the father’s from his baseball team, who is a peds doc, swore that he had dislocated his shoulder. I flippantly tossed that notion aside and encouraged Davis to get up, all the while calling Mark on the phone to come quickly. An hour later, Davis was medicated with Advil and asking if he could play at a friend’s house. Just like the old Bo Jackson commercials, no one knows Bo, like Bo. Know one knows Davis like me.

I arrived at the hill behind the Vezdos house to find Davis sprawled across ice and snow. I did not see the ramp that would only later be revealed to me as the source of him flying into the air. I was more concerned with the immediate sense of hysteria that Davis had slipped into. Mom, I’m scared. Mom I cant move my arm. My arm is tingling. So many thoughts rush through one’s mind, as a mother, including, why did they call off school today, I wonder if he is wearing clean underwear, I wonder how much is just Davis, and how much is pure agony.

My questions were answered with the fact that he was diagnosed with a broken humorous bone –not funny at all. For the next 48 hours, I was back in the role of caregiver, which I so often tried to escape from. By the end of day two, I could no longer stand watching him in pain. So, it was then, we called all the children to the kitchen. “We have something to tell you.” I love how their first impression is always, “Are we in trouble?” Because then I begin to wonder what else have they been doing that they would even suspect us of finding out. “No, no one is in trouble.”

I held the picture of the puppies in my hand. I had already declared to the breeder and the post office that I was following through with this. It was time to declare it to the children. “We wanted to share with you the newest member of the family,”

All three erupted in what might be a scream one hears as a plane is going down. Or perhaps that’s how I heard it. The end of one life, the beginning of another.