i have a middle-schooler. it's exam week. we leave for the USA in 3 days and that needs another post. but the middle-schooler and the exams are interesting. according to "captain fantastic" "interesting" is an illegal word. it doesn't say much. it's kind of a cop out- it buys time, maybe waiting to see if the asker is really interested in the answer. so what i mean is this week of midde-school exams has shown me things about the dynamics of our family. mike takes math. i take science. we rotate on history. we share english. bible, pe, music, IT and french? he's on his own. because we're too tired.
so i was reviewing science with him today.
conservation of mass: in a reaction, the total mass of reactants is equal to the total mass of the products; matter can be changed, transformed, but mass is neither created nor destroyed.
i'm looking at my child who 13 years ago was created in my body. and if he was created, his existence must mean that something in me was destroyed. there has to be balance. some things in me gave themselves to become him. i know technically it was the extra food i ate, but that went to his bones and muscles. parts of me gave him life, my breathing grew him too. my spirit spoke to his.
a very long time ago i was a nursing assistant on the neurosurgery floor of an academic hospital, when i was also in the process of thinking about becoming a doctor. there was a young woman on the floor who had a bad brain tumor growing in her head and a baby growing in her belly. it was complicated. trying to kill off some of her fast growing cells and trying to encourage the growth of others. trying to save her life and the life of her baby. after a while it became clear she wasn't going to make it, but there was still the baby. she was incubator-like. a giant nest. the unlikely protector. semi-conscious but functioning as a garden for this potential life.
it was weird when the obstetrician would come on the floor to scan her belly and see how this baby was doing when she was doing poorly. something dying. something trying to become a life. a floor riddled with endings, and a doctor that helps those beginning. we were all trying to get her to viablilty, 25 weeks at least. and it seemed somehow more significant that anything else happening there. getting that baby to live would somehow validate her living. in a place of loss and questioning of the meaning of things, this would feel like victory. a tangible piece of her to keep breathing her breath. a way for her cells to walk on out and kiss death goodbye. an exchange. conservation of mass. conservation of spirit.
she was about 22 weeks. i remember the code well. i think i may have even been the one who found her not breathing, maybe not, but it felt that way. standing to the side while the already doctors flooded the room and began to resuscitate her. she was already gone. everyone knew that. like for an organ donor, they tired to perfuse her heart, her liver, to pump the blood, to get the oxygen into the baby. maybe she could be kept alive on life-support for a few more weeks- just long enough- just until we could cut the baby out. just so things could somehow be okay.
but that is not what happened. i think that baby got more than nutrients. that baby got a taste of death before it was even born and that was too much. no thank you. i'll head out with my mother. this world is not looking like something i want to be a part of. i'll say goodbye now too.
it was tragic. it was heart wrenching. to hear the words- "she didn't make it, and the baby died too." to imagine the double loss her parents would feel. but there was something sacred about it. something that felt right. they would be buried together. flesh of my flesh. bone of my bone. paired forever. together.
conservation of mass.
there was a time when my baby had a brain tumor. this one. 12 years ago. this one now studying conservation of mass.
the world is giant and small and terrifying and yet wonderful.
we pour ourselves into each other. when our children leave our skin we are transformed. we have pieces of ourselves walking around outside of our bodies. and we have space created from their leaving. we are open, possibly vulnerable, but available. what do we fill it with? we have multiplied. they are ours yet completely their own. unique. not extensions of our selves- but separate selves - battered and bruised by the world and loved and held as well by love and light, by God- so much bigger than me.
and i? i am who? who i was? who i will be?
i am here. reading the science 6 semester 2 study guide, with a boy made up of me.
so i was reviewing science with him today.
conservation of mass: in a reaction, the total mass of reactants is equal to the total mass of the products; matter can be changed, transformed, but mass is neither created nor destroyed.
i'm looking at my child who 13 years ago was created in my body. and if he was created, his existence must mean that something in me was destroyed. there has to be balance. some things in me gave themselves to become him. i know technically it was the extra food i ate, but that went to his bones and muscles. parts of me gave him life, my breathing grew him too. my spirit spoke to his.
a very long time ago i was a nursing assistant on the neurosurgery floor of an academic hospital, when i was also in the process of thinking about becoming a doctor. there was a young woman on the floor who had a bad brain tumor growing in her head and a baby growing in her belly. it was complicated. trying to kill off some of her fast growing cells and trying to encourage the growth of others. trying to save her life and the life of her baby. after a while it became clear she wasn't going to make it, but there was still the baby. she was incubator-like. a giant nest. the unlikely protector. semi-conscious but functioning as a garden for this potential life.
it was weird when the obstetrician would come on the floor to scan her belly and see how this baby was doing when she was doing poorly. something dying. something trying to become a life. a floor riddled with endings, and a doctor that helps those beginning. we were all trying to get her to viablilty, 25 weeks at least. and it seemed somehow more significant that anything else happening there. getting that baby to live would somehow validate her living. in a place of loss and questioning of the meaning of things, this would feel like victory. a tangible piece of her to keep breathing her breath. a way for her cells to walk on out and kiss death goodbye. an exchange. conservation of mass. conservation of spirit.
she was about 22 weeks. i remember the code well. i think i may have even been the one who found her not breathing, maybe not, but it felt that way. standing to the side while the already doctors flooded the room and began to resuscitate her. she was already gone. everyone knew that. like for an organ donor, they tired to perfuse her heart, her liver, to pump the blood, to get the oxygen into the baby. maybe she could be kept alive on life-support for a few more weeks- just long enough- just until we could cut the baby out. just so things could somehow be okay.
but that is not what happened. i think that baby got more than nutrients. that baby got a taste of death before it was even born and that was too much. no thank you. i'll head out with my mother. this world is not looking like something i want to be a part of. i'll say goodbye now too.
it was tragic. it was heart wrenching. to hear the words- "she didn't make it, and the baby died too." to imagine the double loss her parents would feel. but there was something sacred about it. something that felt right. they would be buried together. flesh of my flesh. bone of my bone. paired forever. together.
conservation of mass.
there was a time when my baby had a brain tumor. this one. 12 years ago. this one now studying conservation of mass.
the world is giant and small and terrifying and yet wonderful.
we pour ourselves into each other. when our children leave our skin we are transformed. we have pieces of ourselves walking around outside of our bodies. and we have space created from their leaving. we are open, possibly vulnerable, but available. what do we fill it with? we have multiplied. they are ours yet completely their own. unique. not extensions of our selves- but separate selves - battered and bruised by the world and loved and held as well by love and light, by God- so much bigger than me.
and i? i am who? who i was? who i will be?
i am here. reading the science 6 semester 2 study guide, with a boy made up of me.
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