WEEK 37

Weighing things,
what-if-ing things,
figuring things out.
Maybe I should tell Mom about Cincinnati
even without finding the money first.
Maybe she’ll stop with all the facility stuff
if she knew we could go there.
Maybe she’d be OK with being part of the
Carnival of Giving.
Maybe I don’t need to wait for Dr. Sawyer.
Maybe it’s time for a Hail Mary pass.

You can quit, you know. If you hate this so much.
She whipped her head around.
I almost expected to see fangs bared.
Why would you think I hate this?
She set down the tubing she was draining,
stared at me.
I waited for the fangs.
I see your eye rolls, Mary.
Your sighs.
Those groans when you change his diaper.
She put her hands on her hips.
I don’t know what you mean, Timothy.
Yeah. I’m sure she doesn’t.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes.

Wonder of wonders!
Miracle of miracles!
Mary is home sick today!
I have never been so happy
to help take Levi to his appointments.
All day doctors
and therapists
and blah blah blah.
But it will be just me and Mom and Levi.
All day.
We’ll make it fun.
I’ll make it fun.
Mom won’t even think once about
having to take the day off
and not get paid
because she’s out of sick days.
She won’t even think once about it
because we’ll be having so much fun
at what they call Trach Clinic
but what I call
Super Fun No Mary Day.
Woooooooooo.

At least 20 more months equals
at least 14,600 hours equals
at least 876,000 minutes equals
at least 52,560,000 seconds.
If I reach out my hands
to grab those seconds
like a handful of sand
I can’t reach a single grain.
I can’t imagine what they even look like,
those seconds,
because the seconds we’re in right now
move so slow,
like a big cosmic joke.
And so when the doctors say,
Wait until he’s at least three
then we’ll see how his airway has grown,
we’ll see about getting that trach out,
Mom and I can’t even imagine
when Levi is three years old
because we can’t even imagine dinnertime tonight.
We can’t see the grains of sand
because of all the sand already in our eyes.

I bet it’s so easy
just so super easy
to take a
wait-and-see approach
when you are not the one
or even one of the ones
waiting
and
seeing.
When you are not the one
or even one of the ones
staying up all night
doing the suctioning
cleaning the barf
carrying the oxygen tanks
wiping the tears.
Yeah.
Let’s wait and see
if we all go crazy
or if the bank takes the house.
That sounds like a great plan,
Doc.