Until He Comes

a poem about a mother's love and PTSD

Until He Comes

It’s this love I carry
that eats me alive—
the fear in my bones,
the throb of my pulse.
Born the day
he was,
ravaged the day
he was.
How long,
I wonder,
will this love
devour? 
 
It’s the siren’s echo
coursing through my body—
the scream of the truck,
the howl of my heart.
Etched
into my ears,
carved
into my soul.
How long,
I wonder,
will the terror
hold power?
 
It’s the fragility of life
that badgers my mind—
my lack of control,
these futile hands.
I cannot know,
cannot predict.
Cannot thwart,
cannot protect.
How long,
I wonder,
til all things
are made new?

---

My family is watching my eight-year-old nephew’s baseball game at the ball field a half mile from our home—an idyllic small-town Friday night—when I notice a sudden commotion in the opposing team’s stands.

“Are there any doctors here?” a woman yells. “We need a doctor over here!”

A pediatrician a couple seats down from me jumps to her feet and jogs to the mass of people now standing, crowded around someone lying on the bleachers. My heart rate doubles. I see the doctor kneel to the ground, and my eyes frantically scan the crowd for my five-year-old son, whom I’ve allowed to play at the nearby playground. My head knows he is not the person lying on the bleachers, but my heart bypassed my head several minutes ago. I feel my breath growing shallow. I know I need to breathe, but then I hear the ambulance siren wailing in the distance.

My mom, who’s sitting beside me, looks over at my face. Instantly, she knows I am not okay. “Go,” she says, “I have the kids.” I nod and hurry down the bleachers. Tears spill from my eyes, and my heart races out of control. I look down as I walk, wishing I were invisible, embarrassed by the way my body betrays my mind. The ambulance rounds the corner just as I do, and I freeze, my eyes locked on the flashing lights. Red—the color of emergency, the color of blood, the color of fear.

I force myself to keep walking to the bathroom. I shove open the door and close myself in a stall, steadying my back on the cold metal wall. My ragged breath fills the air around me, my sobs echoing in my ears. I allow my mind to do the swirling it needs to do, to return to the scene where my body’s been living. I see it all as if it’s happening in front of me: the ambulance, the neighbors, my son’s seizing body in my arms. I hear my own screams, feel the fear clawing its way out of my throat. Then, I focus my mind on the present: a different reality. I silently repeat the reality to myself. You are safe. He is safe. You are safe. He is safe. I use my pointer finger to trace a square on my leg and will my breath to follow the pattern. Inhale, one-two-three-four. Exhale, one-two-three-four. I pray three-word prayers: Be with me. Be with them. Be here, please.

After several minutes, I am calm. I leave the bathroom, desperate for an update, my steadier heart now aching for whoever is inside the ambulance. I find out quickly the adult woman is okay, and the incident was likely the result of dehydration. The stands are calm now, all eyes returned to the action on the field.

***

It’s been a year and a half since the red flashing lights were at my house, since the wailing sirens were for my son. A year and a half since I held his blue face in my hands, since I begged for his life.

Most of the time, that day feels far away (thanks to therapy), but on days like last Friday, my body remembers it all.

This is my long-winded way of saying: It felt like a good time to resurrect this poem from my computer and give it a home here. I know I can’t be the only mother who carries this heavy love around hospitals and baseball fields alike.

---

If you’re interested in reading more, I wrote about my son’s seizure and the way it changed my life over at Coffee + Crumbs.