I Love My Broken-Eyed Son
I was both lucky and unlucky not to have attended last week’s baseball game—the one where my eleven-year-old took a baseball to the face. I’ve been meaning to write about it, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about it, and to be honest, I’m still not certain what to write.
On the one hand, I felt awful not to have been there. I go to 90% of his little league games, so of course it figured that one of the very few ones I missed was the one where he sustained an injury. I couldn’t tell the doctor what actually happened when she asked for details. On the other hand, my kid puked in Daddy’s car instead of mine.
I’m glad that I don’t have a visual in my head of the hit to replay over and over, but to be honest, I chit-chat so much at games that I might not have actually been paying attention the moment it happened anyway. Daddy pays much closer attention than I do.
Of course my divorce guilt kicked in, because I was enjoying a kid-free evening the exact moment my eldest child got his first concussion. It doesn’t matter that I went to most all of his games. I wasn’t at the one that mattered. Somehow, if I had been at work or doing charity work I think I’d feel better about it, but maybe not. Maybe absentee mother guilt transcends marital status.
But now what? In between throwing up in the ER, my son begged to be allowed to play in the game on Saturday—four days away. I said no, his father said no, and the doctor said no. I figured a week’s rest wouldn’t hurt him, but I knew he’d return to his favorite sport sooner or later. Then we went to the concussion clinic for follow up.
It turned out that one of my precious son’s blue eyes had come loose in his head. OK, that’s not technically a thing, but when the physical therapist assessed him, it was obvious that his left eye no longer tracked along with the right one. While many people get along fine without two eyes (my mother only has one) he came into the world with two perfectly good eyeballs and I’d like to keep it that way. And the eye came loose because of a brain injury. I like his brains quite a lot. I feel like he will need to do much braining in his lifetime. Baseball isn’t worth the risk to me, though it certainly still is to him.
Thus my conundrum. I don’t want to be that overprotective mother who doesn’t let her kid do anything fun because she’s too worried about him getting hurt, but at the same time I want to force him to wear a space helmet-style bubble over his precious little head. Can someone make that a fashion statement, please?
It is the tail end of the baseball season anyway, so I figured I had time—like at least a solid month —to get used to the idea before fall ball started. I know that going back on the field and playing so that he doesn’t lose his nerve is in his best interest. I was raised with that whole get back on the horse that bucked you thing. I get it. I don’t want him to become afraid. But I sure wouldn’t mind if he lost interest anytime soon. I did what any sane non-baseball-loving mother would do, and signed him up to run cross country. Afterall, I ran track. His father ran track. My brother ran both cross country and track. My kid has extra-long legs--he could be good at it. This oculd be his thing. I allowed myself a moment or two of visualizing my son in a running outfit with a medal around his neck. Heck, let's make it two medals while we're at it, his sweaty head steaming in the fall air and a grin acorss his face. Then there was a rain cancellation or two, and now there is one last baseball game. The coach was surprised I wasn't more enthusiatic about it.
Since his loose eye has tightened back down again, I agreed to let him play. I even signed him up for one last tournament in September, but I don’t like it. If you need me, I’ll be googling space helmets between now and the next game.
