Our daughter ("Almost 21") has been very sick with an upper respiratory infection for the past week. She had returned from a beach trip with friends Wednesday, when she suddenly started feeling and sounding much worse. This one, Almost 21, never stops. She pushes at 150 mph every day of her life. She works hard and plays hard. She is a bubble that never pops. She just goes and goes without thinking about it.
So Wednesday night, we sat down to a delicious dinner made by our grill master, "Better Half." Although the food was delicious, there was no ignoring our now very ill daughter. "Big Brother" was home as well and even he was about to send her to bed for the night. Of course, you know he was thinking, "Don't give it to me!"
The four of us who were home started quickly searching the various medicine cabinets and drawers throughout the house, as we all do, looking for cold medicines that will relieve coughing, that will reduce coughing, or will inflict coughing. You get the idea. All four of us weighed in our opinions on what that cough required. Not a medical license among us, but everyone concerned for her health and well being. We finally made our group decision (I'm not sure if there was an actual voting process or an exasperated ending), we medicated her and sent her off to bed.
I don't know what made me check on her a few hours later. I rarely have a need to check on any of them ... ever! It's not like Almost 21 usually needs mothering. If anything, she mothers me when I am the one who is sick. She is the strongest and bravest woman I know. But I walked across the house to her room and I could sense something was wrong. My mom-intuition had been right. She seemed broken and confused there in the dark. Her fever was through the roof and she was hallucinating. For the first time in nearly a decade, I crawled into my daughter's bed and held her in her confusion throughout the night -- even when she stole all the covers!
I had a lot of time to think during the night. Fear was gripping me. There was my baby, although taller than I am now, lying there shaking and disoriented. Should I take her to the emergency room? Did we give her the wrong medications? Was it the fever? I was as scared as she was as I held her hand and reassured her.
I explained away the dancing items on her walls as she watched in amazement. I told her people weren't moving things into her room through her second-story windows, even though she didn't believe me. I tried to make her understand that her fever or her medications were making her see things I couldn't. We laugh now about her thinking I was magically making her shelves dance, but it was truly frightening at the time.
I realize more today than most days that motherhood is a never ending process. My mom told me that a long time ago, but I didn't understand this journey. Being a parent is not for sissies! The good times are great, but the tough times ask us to take on another tour of duty; another active role. We do it and we don't ask why. We respond. We love. We care.
I love being a mom. Have I mentioned that today? I do. I love being the matriarch of this crazy family! That's such a cool, old-fashioned word -- Matriarch. Maybe I should put that in quotes when I refer to myself in the future. Hmmmm.
Almost 21 is doing much better now. No one will ever give her cold medications again, but she is recovering!
Have a healthy day!
Almost 21 and me when she still needed mothering.
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