One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Month 3

He was close. So close to moving by himself. But then he fell again, ripping open old lacerations and adding new damage to the nerves, and I watch as my months of care and hardwork disappear with the re-stitching of the wounds and the doctors telling me that there is nothing else to be done. Both legs are now useless. A wheelchair is the only way he will ever move.

I sit down heavily in the hospital chair, the sterile, empty walls staring back at me as tears creep down my cheeks. Cheeks that are now wrinkled and lined with stress and bordered from above by sagging under-eye bags and hair that is steaked with gray. The months I have spent tirelessely trying to help my baby walk, the physical therapy, the endless massages that I have given his lifeless little legs, the daily horror of watching as he has slowly come to realise all of the things he will no longer be able to do, have taken their toll on me physically, too. These past months have been hell, and now, I am going back to that pit of fire, just as I was beginning to hope that perhaps my son would walk again.

Month one was the hardest of all, as the pain and denial gave way to understanding, and I realised what a hard road lay ahead. Month two was getting used to the wheelchair, and endless exersizes, and appointments with emotionless doctors who didn't seem to care. And month three? I saw progress. The twitch of a toe here, the jiggling of a foot there, just enough to movement to make my heart soar to new levels of hope. And now, just as month four was rolling around the corner, it's back to square one, except this time there is no hope of ever jumping to square two.

"Ma'am?" I look up. A nurse with a smiling face that holds no emotion hands me a clipboard. "We have some papers here for you to sign. Hospital bills and such." Yes, and the expenses. Relatives and friends have pitched in supportively, meals have been brought by caring neighbors, errands run by understanding coworkers, but the bills have slowly accumulated. I bought a basket to keep all of them in, and then I bought another one because the first had overflowed with those constant reminders of how little control I have.

Month 4

It's hell watching my baby suffer. Before the accident, I was entranced by him. His curls, and chubby cheeks. His blue eyes remind me so much of his father's. They looked like the ocean beneath the sun: calm, placid, teeming with life. I would sit and stare at him for hours as he rolled around the room, laughing. I would hold his hand as he walked, unsteady on his fat little feet. Now, when I look at him, I see pain. I see the scars on his legs and the discomfort etched in his eyes. The medicine that I give him every day causes headaches and rashes and pain in his joints. It's the same medicine that the doctors tell me will help with his recovery.

My sweet baby never complains. He cries and hurts and struggles, but he never complains. No, I'm the one who does that. I call up friends and tell them how awful life is. I talk about the bills and hospital visits. I rant about how I'll never see my baby play football, or run track, or hunt, or anything that involves his legs. But mostly, I sit and look at pictures from before the accident. Pictures of me, holding my baby and smiling. I look happy and whole in those pictures. Now I am wrinkled, and gray, and broken, just like my baby's legs.

Month 5

I don't know what changed, but I'm done complaining. I'm done hurting. Now I'm determined. My doctor thinks I'm stupid. He doesn't say it, but he's one of those people who doesn't have to say anything for you to know what he's thinking. He wears his thoughts on his face like badly applied makeup.

My baby is going to walk. He's going to move and be free and live as he was always supposed to.

"There is no hope," my doctor tells me, undisturbed by how heartless he sounds. "His legs are irreperably damaged."

"But his mind isn't, and determination and hard work will get him farther than pessimism and hoplessness."

And so the cycles begin again. The hospital visits, and therapy, and leg massages. I pack away the pictures from before the accident and instead fill the walls with new pictures. In them, the gray is still fighting the auburn in my hair, and wrinkles still line my cheeks, but I'm smiling while I hold my baby. I like to think about how those smiles are borne from pain, yet they cause me none.

Month 6

I'm dreaming. I relive the accident as my sleep deprived mind conjures up whatever thoughts most dominate my waking hours. I dream of the perfectly normal day that ended in screaming, and blood, and the blinding ambulance lights that filled my head as they carried my baby, with his torn, beaten legs, away into the night.

But when I wake up, I don't cry as I once did whenever I remembered the accident. I smile a little smile, get up, and take my baby to his physical therapy. And this afternoon, he twitches his foot.

Month 7

Steps! Well, one step. But it is more progress than ever before and my heart couldn't be more full. I have finally drug myself up from my selfishly constructed mire of memories and pain and I'm walking on dry land now, holding hope like a lantern in my hand.

I look at my baby now as I once did. The chubby cheeks are beginning to disappear and the curls are starting to straighten out and darken, but the ocean blue eyes are still there. They are full of light now, the light and innocence that should be in the eyes of a little boy. And his smiles make me smile. And my smiles make him smile, and I doubt that there is ever a time anymore when we don't smile.

Year 5

Even after all these years, his steps are still shaky, his ankles rolling so that he often walks on the sides of feet. He uses his arms for balance, holding them out like airplane wings. But his smile is infectious. He doesn't care that he looks like a marshmellow on stilts. He cares that he can move on his own.

Recently, I've been working on teaching him to run. It hurts him. He can feel the pain in his legs, like thousands of needles running along his scarred limbs. But he pushes through and keeps going, leaping, bounding through the fields beyond our little blue house. He even gathers several of his friends this afternoon and has a race. He doesn't win, but I've never felt as proud as I do when I watch him sprint through the finish line behind the fat kid with glasses. He says he's going to carry that homemade silver medal everywhere. And I am going to carry the image of his smile with me everywhere, too.

Year 10

He looks up at me from the sidelines and smiles. He gives a little wave, but not too big. He's much too old now to be waving to his mother. But the little wave is enough. It's all I need.

His coach, a large man who is larger than life, jogs up to my baby, my little boy, my man, and whispers something in his ear. I scoot forward on the bleacher. My little man turns and flashes me a grin and then runs out on the field. My heart leaps. The play commences. I've never understood football. I still don't. But before I know it, my son streaks down the field, football in hand, and I hear my own voice. I'm screaming, cheering him on with all of my might. He runs, and runs. He's running. I still can't get over the joy of seeing him bounding where I once thought I would only see him rolling along in his wheelchair.

Touchdown! The crowd erupts around me. The lady to my right shakes my shoulder.

"That was your boy who made that one, wasn't it? Number 24?" she asks.

I nod and look away, careful not to let her see the tears running down my face.

Year 20

She's a sweet little thing, the image of her father when he was young. Chubby cheeks, a head of curls, and eyes the color of the ocean.

My baby, who is now a man, cradles his own child. His wife, a pretty woman with hair like fire, stands behind him, hands poised on his shoulders.

"Deaf?" I ask, pointing to the baby.

"And mute. We just got the results back this morning."

"Is there any hope?"

My son shakes his head. "Very little. Maybe, possibly, she might one day learn to form certain words, but she'll be extremely limited in her vocabulary."

"Do you have hope?"

An image of two lifeless little legs flashes through my mind.

"I have determination. That's got to count for something. Speech therapy, hearing aids, whatever. I'm willing to try."

"Can I hold her?"

The child is shifted into my arms, and the feeling of the wriggling little body in my grasp brings back such sweet memories.

"Determination worked for me."

I look into my son's eyes. I see hope swimming in the blue that reminds me so much of the ocean.

And it gives me hope, too.