We went to our first baseball game last night as L. has been wanting. Thankfully a friend gave us the tickets and we even found free parking. Great relief to have a night out that didn't make me resentful of our woes. There were several highlights: My sister holding her niece as she focused on something invisible in the sky. She voiced that perhaps Robert came to see the Roberto Clemente presentation. Watching L. let loose a little and stomp his feet and even almost dance brings a wistful smile to me as I recall that mind's eye snapshot. Seeing a couple friends from Howard County, people who treat us as family whenever we see them was great. Watching children, whom I don't know, cheer for their team and exude joy was cool. While I wanted him to shush, I still appreciated the adult who bantered to the players though they could not hear him. I imagined him as a child listening to his own father at Memorial Stadium, "swingbatterbatter". Seeing our oldest on the shoulders of my husband with our second along their sides was uplifting as we have too few family outings. The time we have gives me peace as it makes me feel normal for those fleeting minutes. I struggle in those seconds to forget our reality.
Truth is for me the night was beyond overwhelming. There are symptoms of illness which remain. At times I have random pains. My tolerance has grown but my arm throbbed in a pulse. I tolerated it as I held our baby in a carrier and put my mommy mask on to let L. enjoy this night. I get disoriented and anxious in unfamiliar places and crowds. I'm not talking about that normal anxiety which many people feel. I'm talking about something that comes with the poison inside of me. It mutates normal feelings, twisting and magnifying them to a place that rationally I know is not real. I breathe to exhale the discomfort from my soul but the modified emotions are intense. My logical nature often loses to their toxic force.
I have much to say about being sick and am contemplating how to tell my story when part of its unfolding affected my mind, when putting thoughts together frustrates me to a level that does not make sense. My calculating mind has always been able to process. The fog has not yet sufficiently risen over the bridge. Each day I nurture the breeze to whirl away the haze which hides my clarity.
Both our sons have risen to be my protectors, each finding soulful gifts. This story about the baseball game is not about our seven year old finding a compromise with his introverted nature and the big wide world. This is a tale of how my heart exploded with honor as I watched, almost from outside of myself, N. show his love towards me.
My darling second son has long batting dark eyelashes that will touch some girl's heart one day. He clung to me almost continuously for his first eight weeks, and shares my genetic inability to clear mold toxins. When I learned this, the intensity of his newborn need for me made sense. Infants are driven by instincts and his knew there was danger. I worry for his future. I will research until I take my last breath so that he can hold onto his health. His predisposition to stereotypical male behavior has taught me something about nature versus nurture and love. He only says "I love you" to me - well, until our baby girl arrived. I think it took her about a week to steal his heart. Otherwise he will punch people for whom he cares and wait for their reaction. Also, his first reaction to protecting his space is physical not verbal. I am amused by that insight as he is so much more verbal than our first. I am able to see how his jabs differ in caring and in fending off.
Though I had the worst symptoms during N.'s block of severe selfish toddler behavior, my little fellow was the only person who never made me feel guilty for being ill. He accepted the difference in me in stride. He did not like when I cried and would tell me to stop my "whining" but it was in such a matter of fact way that I was pretty sure he just didn't like the weeping competing with his television show. His continued need for me felt more like his way of making me feel safe than a ploy for attention.
We had a thing...
N., "Hey mAWWWWWWmmmeeeeeeee. I wUUUUUUUUvvv you."
Me in reply, "Hey N.!"
N., "I know what you are going to say. You are going to say that you love me too."
Me with a smirk or laugh at the repetition of this game, "Yep, N. I love you too."
N., "I knew you were going to say dat."
No matter what type of day I had, he always showed me love and friendship. He didn't have fear in his eyes about my behavior or lack of energy. Sometimes I noticed my oldest did. While he has a strong attachment to me, he is a pretty independent kid and makes due playing by himself. Honestly, like me and Mark, some days he prefers it that way. Alone he can complete the missions he creates in his mind.
Back to last night. N. is not much of a hand holder but there are situations that we reign in his independence and grab his hand. I just remembered his first sentence, "I do it", ever so ready to do things all by himself. L. and Daddy have taken the lead as we leave the stadium. I have baby M. in the Bjorn and carry a bag of bottles on my shoulder. My arm is pulsing in inflammation. I ignore it as it's time to be mama bear and help deliver our children home safely. The energy of the night time city is new for the children. Daddy and L. get too far ahead. N. says, "C'mon Mommy!" as he turns his stroll into a forward scurry using the momentum with a determined purpose. He is pulling me and baby to move more quickly, to catch up. When we walk as five again, I look at him and see how much he has changed the past year.
While he still expects and wants me to take care of so many of his needs, he has become my guardian. We fall behind again. He pushes ahead and almost lets go but grabs my hand tighter to help me catch up. My fingers are twice the length of his, but my hand feels small in his somehow. N., "I don't want this place to lose you. Cause this place is vERRRRRy big." I look down at him again. I imagined the day I will look up at him, the day when I need help and he is going to be there for me. This child just took on the role of a man. Guardian.
As I type this, he just said "I love you." Through the side of his eyes, he looks at me and points to me and the baby as he says "I was saying that to you and M." Then he pats her on her sleeping head and says "Good baby". I will keep reading and learning in the hopes of gifting him his health as he ages. I whisperingly know that he is prone to an illness which will pickpocket his wellness without him knowing, like it did to me. We are a growing silent epidemic on the horizon. We are invisible, misunderstood, condescendingly scoffed at and not believed. We are lost in this country's medical world. What I realized last night is I am protecting the boy, who, with a manly sized wisdom, is already protecting me and guarding his little sister with his soul. He has a strong supporter in our battle, his big brother whose heart has exponentially grown with his thoughtfulness to me in my illness. But L. is moving to a place in life where he is not so much dragging me to safety, but looking over his shoulder from time to time to make sure I am still there.
One day, one today, N. will read these words and I hope they are enough for him to know that he was my best friend when I was the worst. He approached it all so matter of factly and with such acceptance that he was the only person who made me feel whole when I was so broken. Others came around, but he never left my side. It seems strange that a child who spanned the ages of 3 and 4 would be the one to be there for me like that. In contemplating this, I just now realized that because this illness does not make sense to anyone except those who study it and those who have it, an adult never could have been there for me like that. Mycotoxicosis, mine from tricothecene, seems absurd, seems too paranoid, seems too far out there for many to grasp. I am not allergic to mold - I've had that test. When you suffer from this and know that it is being poisoned from a toxin in our environment, not an allergic reaction; when you walk into a place and immediately begin to itch and break out in a rash as what's left of your immune system attempts to fight; when you've had people whom you consider the closest look at you like you need a psychiatrist - this is when I realized that my darling second son would be the most logical person to have been my best friend. Without intentionally doing so, that relationship encouraged his primal, protective nature until this almost 5 year old of mine guards me in a city which he does not know, at a time of night he rarely sees.
There is a book we read together when he had insomnia. I would read a page and then he would recite a page. The last is me saying "Is it the end" and him saying "or just the beginning." After our first baseball game, I know this is the beginning of him being there for me as I age. This illness eats memories, but I hope by writing this that the snapshot of him pulling us forward is framed in my mind's gallery.
