Scars

Dear Kus,

Sometime in the near future, you will forget what happened yesterday.  Yesterday you lost your nail on your right thumb after playing with the bicycle turned upside down when the chain and the chainring caught it. You woke mommy up with a very painful cry.  We know consoling  you didn't lessen the pain, not even a bit. How I so wish it could.  So I left it to our angels to help you make it more bearable.  All I could do was give you a dose of pain reliever and squeeze on drops of Lidocaine I had kept in my anesthesia box.  Poppa got dizzy, probably because  of the commotion, and he was very sorry for you.  It was just too sad to see you like that, in so much pain.

It does make me wonder if your nail will grow out perfectly fine.  I also lost my nail on my right thumb when I was very little, that's why it's a little disfigured.  I still tweak it, and make it bleed, until now.  I remember how I made it like so.  I remember how the nail had to be removed to (not the details of it anymore though), and the white meat exposed.  I remember vomiting the medicine I had to take (probably an antibiotic), and I remember my mom, your grandma, being angry at me for vomiting the awful orange medicine.  I wonder if your Lola remembers.  Because, although I didn't cry as you suffered (some mothers probably would), my heart was really heavy.  I know I will remember for a long time, if not forever.

You will move on as your wound heals.  You'll learn, and be more careful with that bicycle next time.  But as for me, it is another big scar in this mother's heart.  I'll remember your face as you felt sorry for your wound, even after the pain was mostly gone.  I'll remember.  Just like how I remember your Kuya when he dislocated his shoulder.  What happened that morning, and how it was my fault.  I'll remember the way he weakly pressed on the piano keys, and the way he tried beating the drum with the affected arm.  I remember him on my lap as we drove to the hospital to get an xray.  And how sorry I was.  Still am.  That was four years ago, and sometimes I still had to forgive myself again.

Your wound will be ok, like Kuy's shoulder is ok.  I thank the Lord for the abrasions, and bumps you've encountered throughout your play-- because they're nothing serious.  I pray your and your kuya's guardian angels cushion your every fall.

I guess it's just a mother's bane to have an invisible scar, etched in her mind, and in her heart, for each of your wound, made deeper by your cry, and pain in your eyes.   As always, I can only wish it was I bearing the pain instead of you.

Get well soon, my baby, my love.


Mommy