HIS OTHERNESS

I find that when I visit other blogs I find something new to write. I react. This is how I know that the blogs I visit are good places to go. They inspire me. They provoke me. They set my wheels in motion. Someone inspired me the other day to think about what are the most prevalent memories of our lives. I've tried to find her in my blog roll but to be honest, I read so many...I go so many places trying to seek out voices that fit on my sleeve. I don't only want the voices that echo mine but I need a motley crue of voices to jab me from all directions. After all, we're more than one thing, aren't we?

My son told me this the other night as I was tucking him into bed. I leaned over close to his cheek and felt his fine hairs rest against mine. He whispered into my ear that he was proud of me, he was amazed by me. You are so many things, he told me. You're a mom and a baker, a gardener and a picture taker, you're a writer and an ice cream scooper. You're a lot! These are the gifts he gives to me. This is the type of person that he is. He scoops me up in his little mind and tosses me like a salad, amazed at my diversity, my sweetness, my sourness, my potential. It scares me sometimes, how bright he is, how deep. I fear it like a warning, like he's tapped into something I can't quite see, like he has one foot resting somewhere other. Mostly though, I am simply amazed by him, by his capacity to see, to care, to think and offer and save all of our lost souls, when we give him the time.

And this is why I think about that one incident when we almost lost him. He reminded me of it the other night too when his friend was visiting. We were at the table eating dinner. It's such a chance to show off those things that make us special, in front of our friends. The table a kind of theatre stage.

I almost died twice, he shocked his friend. Right mom, remember that? How could I forget? But I did forget the second time. I had to come back to this paragraph at the end of writing this to say, yes, it was twice. I had only remembered the once. I'll only write of that first time here and now. I'll save the other for another time.

It was 5 years ago, maybe a little more. My son was only an infant. Almost one. Crawling around on his belly in his playroom while my husband and I scampered around packing for a trip to the U.S. to visit his family. The playroom was baby-proofed, only big plump baby toys littering the floor. It was a small house and I was in the bathroom jamming hygiene products into a bag. Then I heard it. It came through the vents that connected the rooms. I heard it like a knife cutting into cardboard and I was off jumping kid's toys and pillows and suitcases like a horse jumping obstacles without thought. I found him on his belly grabbing at his mouth. My old daycare training kicked in and I thought relatively calmly, clear his mouth. Our kids choked on everything, so at first I thought it was normal. He'd found a crumb from a cracker or something. He seemed to have the ability to pull small things from neighbouring universes and plug them into his mouth.

There was nothing there.

I turned him and Heimliched him. He gagged more, now making sputtering sounds, his fingers wiggling at his neck. He was turning red. My husband was at the doorway caught in a stasis, knowing this time was different from all of the others. CALL 911, I screamed! Even now, writing this, I almost can't take it. I Heimliched him again. Blood came up. He was turning purple. I was holding my son out from me like a grotesque doll I didn't really want to handle. I didn't know what to do. Give me the f....n phone, I screamed. My husband hadn't dialed yet. He had been standing there absolutely frozen.

They were so calm on the phone I hated them. They tried to talk reason, like I didn't know what I was doing. I know how to clear a mouth. I know how to do the Heimlich. Send a f...n ambulance. My son is purple. He's bleeding from his mouth. He's getting still. Send the ambulance NOW!

Them: It's already on it's way, mam. And I thought, then why are you keeping me on the phone? Why are you keeping me from my son? To pay witness to the death of my son? F... that! I threw the phone and grabbed my son again. I Heimliched him as hard as I could, not worrying about breaking bones, not worrying about damaging him in some other way. It was pure desperation. Reluctantly he foamed up blood and frothy spittle from the side of his mouth. It wasn't like in the movies, an obvious hacking up of something, an obvious defeat of death. I cleared his mouth again. He cried. I let myself cry then too 'cause surely this is all I had left.

The ambulance came and I rode with him. He was strapped to a tiny table. I don't remember the attendants doing anything to him but surely they must have. I remember our little house growing smaller and smaller out that back window. I held his hand hard. It must have hurt. He didn't let me know if it did.

He sat on an adult sized table in the emergency room. The nurses cooed at how cute he was. I wanted to slap them. He had almost died. I hated them then for being so normal, for being so at ease. The X-rays revealed that he had swallowed a zipper tag. His little hand must have reached into an alternate universe and pulled it in because we never found an article of clothing missing one and believe me we checked, wanting to blame someone. Never finding anyone to blame. I was supposed to check his poop until I found that it had passed. I never found that either.

So it was that death had grabbed at my son with purple hands and tried to drag him from me. This memory will never leave me. It has shaped a lot that's happened between then and now. We don't speak of it often and I was surprised when my son had mentioned it the other night. I don't even think on it often but when I do remember it, think of that colour of blue-purple that was taking him over, I can't help but think, ya, he does have one foot somewhere other or at least he did for a time.

This is my son a few years ago, a little less long, but already who he is. You see his heart there, pushing on his chest, making it bigger, forcing it to grow and everyone around him?