April Eleventh
Marlo had her tonsils out last Thursday—no, this is not the long post want to write about that, I’ve been a little busy with the bomb I dropped in my lap when I relaunched this site—and when we checked in they gave us both hospital bracelets. As the nurse tied mine around my wrist she told Marlo, “This is so that we don’t send you home with the wrong mom!”
Hmm. Let’s see. One sure-fire strategy for giving a seven-year-old a heart attack just moments before going under anesthesia to have her throat slashed open: reveal that there are apparently so many random parents wandering around the halls of the hospital that you’ve had to resort to tagging them like cattle.
Remember when Tommy woke up in that strange house?! HOO! That was a rough one. Sent him home with Ellen instead of Patricia, and Ellen didn’t even realize she’d taken home the wrong boy for over a week! He couldn’t really talk or protest, you know, because of the whole tonsil thing. So we got these fancy neon bracelets now. REST EASY.
It’s been over five days, and she doesn’t want to take her bracelet off. And she’s adamant that I not remove mine. I’d be lying if I said that I wish I wasn’t required to wear this thing forever.
My mother’s birthday is today. I don’t have any recent photos of her, and all the ones from my childhood are in boxes that have yet to be unpacked from our move. But when I saw this one that she took of me and Marlo after Marlo’s surgery, I realized it could have been a portrait of the two of us. I have never felt more loved in all my life like I have in the last six months. My mother has wrapped me up in her arms again and again—and again and again and again—to let me know that she would be the one to take me home.
I love you, Mom. Happy birthday. I’m glad I didn’t get sent home with Ellen.