G shows me gleefully how tall he is, stretching his short frame as high as he can. I watch his belly arch, see how he’s lost his toddler pudge. The pit of my stomach drops. Is he losing weight? Or just stretching out taller?
I was his age, 3, when I started losing weight. I was getting sick, but we didn’t know it yet. Three more months would pass before I ended up in the hospital, stuck in a bed, waking terrified in the night.
The extended family who knows me now, and adores the small boy, tell me I am too anxious. They say my worrying will not help G. I have to relax. I should trust that he’ll be ok. I love these people; they are my family. I watch their faces, agree with them intellectually. They didn’t know me at age 3.
I go back to staring at G and wondering if he is losing weight.
Will it get easier once he’s past the 3 years, 3 months mark? I remember this from my years as a social worker. Parents get unsettled when their kids turn the same age they were when the Bad Thing Happened to them as a child.
I’m 35 now. The same age my mom was when Bad Things Happened to her kids. My mom looks at him and says “Look at him, K. He’s just fine.” She tells me not to make up things to worry about. I look at him. He is running excitedly to the couch, throwing himself against the side as he rapidly explains his latest discovery. He is not tired or lethargic or disinterested.
Her words stick in my head. She is maybe the only one who could get away with saying them to me. “Look at him, he’s just fine.” She spent years looking at me to see if I was fine. She learned to notice faint shifts in the color in my face; too pale and she would pour food into me. She learned to notice shifts in my mood, changes in the smell of my breath. She stood by my bed night after night, deciding whether or not to wake me up to make me eat a little more. She didn’t want me to pass out in my sleep at night, unsure if I would wake up in the morning.
I stand by G’s crib, listening to him breath at night. I wait through three breaths, making sure his lungs are rising and falling evenly. Look at him, he’s just fine. Can I be so lucky? Can he make it through age 3, solid and intact? I lay a hand across his back, feel the steady rise and fall of his chest against my palm.
This Family is Sacred 