What to do with pain
I took my daughter to the ER today. The ambulance came and I rode with her to the hospital. I watched as they moved her in a chair towards the stretcher, her head forward, hanging loosely. Her body limp and heavy. I had this thought. This is traumatic. And that moment was suspended over me like an umbrella — my daughter is not okay. I am not okay. And what do I do with that?
I’ve been feeling this heaviness for days now — this impending doom. I was sure I would come home and find her dead. Over the weekend, I had a near panic attack, overwhelmed with the certainty that everything was about to get worse. It’s like butterflies in my ribcage. I’m unsettled. I feel open and raw and wanting. It’s the wanting that’s the worst. I want this all to be over. I want to know that it will be okay. I want to know what to do while it is all not okay. I want and I want and I want.
In that space of want and uncertainty, I tend to look for comfort on the internet. I search for a story that might be similar to mine so I could hold hands with it. I try to find some kind of road map in other people’s experiences. Sometimes I look at horoscopes, though I don’t believe they are true. I just want to know something, so I look everywhere to ease the wanting.
It’s hard to identify what I really need in all this wanting. I am afraid my daughter will die, but I’m also afraid she will…