It’s not our first visit to the emergency room with our kids.
This particular visit was brought to us by after dinner horseplay, iterations of “settle down!” from the kitchen sink as I scrubbed the last dinner pan, followed soon after by the type of crying that spelled out the next few hours before I actually ever saw what happened.
Oliver busted his chin on the floor. So, we buckled them into their car seats with their spaghetti sauce-stained shirts and headed to the ER. Nathan’s assessment assured me there was no critical danger, but I dreaded the stitches that were likely in store for us that evening.
I knew he was going to be fine, but I still felt anxious and guilty, and maybe even wondered if I would be questioned for bringing my filthy, bleeding child into the ER. As we waited to be called back, one of his preschool classmates was frantically rushed in by her mother with a head wound from...after dinner horseplay with her big sister. A few minutes later, the ER door opened and out sauntered Oliver’s preschool teacher and her daughter. These familiar faces shifted our conversations from debriefing scary experiences with furrowed brows to exasperated laughter and friendly chatter.
This was on my mind when we read Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers this week. In this book, a sad, silent penguin shows up on the doorstep of a little boy. Assuming it lost, the boy searches far and wide to find out where the penguin belongs, only to hop in a boat to the South Pole to find the penguin’s home. All the way there, the boy chats with the silent penguin and tells it stories. They don’t find the penguin’s community at the South Pole, but the boy drops the him off, noting he looks sadder than ever. On his trip home, it dawns on the boy that the penguin was never sad, he was just lonely. He turns his boat around, reuniting with the penguin.
Jeffers reminded me of how important it is to have community. As my family continues to emerge from Covid isolation and settles into a new town, I’m reminded that we are not meant to journey through life alone. We have to find our people that will laugh at our tales, listen to our wild days and … keep us company in the ER waiting room.
