Elbows Up

When my son was in the first grade, he fell off the monkey bars during recess one morning and broke his elbow. The first recess of the day was at 9:45 a.m. He fell from the bars onto that spongy ground they use in playgrounds now, and a teacher on the yard sent him to the nurse’s office.

When he got there, the nurse looked at the scrape on his elbow, cleaned it with alcohol, covered it with antibiotic ointment and a bandage, and then made him bend and straighten his arm a few times. He winced and held his breath - he demonstrated that part later - and let her know it really hurt, but she told him he was fine and that he should go back to class.

About an hour later, he went to his teacher - it was her first year teaching and she was wonderful - enthusiastic, kind, loved the kids. He told her it was getting worse. She was sympathetic - but said the nurse had looked at it so it must be okay, and to do his best. She asked him to try writing with his left hand for a little while. He went back to his desk.

When it was time for Phys Ed, he changed into his gym clothes carefully, and went to the field. The coach told the class to run laps, and he started running with a couple of his little buddies, but when he got halfway around the track he collapsed. The coach came racing over, took one look at his elbow - and sent him back to the nurse’s office.

When my phone rang, I was home with my daughter. She was two-and-a half, and I’d just given her lunch. We were sitting at the dining room table when the number popped up, and any parent will tell you - seeing your child’s school number show up on your screen when you aren’t expecting it is almost never a good sign. The nurse told me I should come, my son had fallen off the monkey bars at recess and his elbow was probably broken. She wasn’t warm, just factual. I was up and out with my daughter on my hip and my bag slung over my shoulder before she said goodbye.

I had my child strapped into her carseat in under a minute, my bag flung on the passenger seat, and at some point during the minute-ride to school, I had worked out that recess had happened three hours before they’d called me. I knew my son’s schedule - I volunteered there a few days a week. Could he have broken his elbow that long ago, and they were only calling me now? Had he been in that kind of pain for three hours? I felt sick thinking about it.

Photo by Stephen Andrews on Unsplash

I was parked and running through the gate with my daughter in my arms, “Dywan’s ewbow is huwting? Dywan crying?” she kept asking me. “Yes, honey, I think his elbow is broken, I don’t know if he’s crying, but we’re going to get him to the hospital,” I told her again and again - because it seemed to help both of us.

I raced through the main office and into the nurse’s office where I was surprised to see the principal sitting by the cot where my son was on his back, pale as milk, eyes the size of saucers, pupils dilated. His elbow was as big as a small grapefruit. It did not take an orthopedic surgeon to see it was broken, I knew instantly. I slid my daughter down next to me and we went right to him. “Oh, honey,” I said, “that must really hurt.” He nodded, and a couple of tears slid out the corners of his eyes.

“Dwyan crying,” my daughter said sadly.

I picked him up carefully so I wouldn’t bump his elbow, kissed his little cheeks and his forehead and told him we were going to get him fixed up right away. Meanwhile, the principal was chattering in a sing-song voice and I was catching snippets - “...these things don’t always present as terrible at first …” - “...the nurse asked him how bad the pain was when he came in…”

You could never get time with this principal. She was not available to discuss new and better fundraising ideas, or things like how to address the insane lice breakout that happened in the kindergarten classroom the year before - and didn’t end until a bunch of us moms lined up to do head checks and take all the dress-up clothes to be professionally cleaned, and pay to have the rugs shampooed ourselves. She wasn’t around to talk about field trips, or ways to attract interesting people to come and talk to the kids, or anything outside the box - or inside it, either.

But suddenly there she was trailing after me, chirping away about how it made sense that my son had been in a ton of pain for three hours and no one had called.

My mind was racing with problem-solving questions - did I take my son to the pediatrician first, or go directly to the ER? It was my first (not last) broken bone as a mom. I assumed I was heading to the ER, but thought I’d call the doctor. I was trying to somehow carry my son, hold my daughter’s hand, and manage his backpack while getting us all to the car as fast as I could - when suddenly I realized why the principal was there.

“Listen!” I interrupted her, “I’m not going to sue, I’m not litigious. I am upset. Please, stop talking. Please help me. Pick up my daughter, and take the backpack and help me get my kids to the car! Please!” She looked stunned, and then she picked up my daughter and took the bag and followed me. I got my son strapped into his carseat, then my daughter. I put his backpack on the floor of the backseat, thanked her, and took off.

I called the pediatrician - my beloved Dr. Malphus - who told me to go directly to the emergency room. My daughter and I talked to my son all the way there, and slowly got the story of his morning. My heart broke for him, and the only thing I was focused on for the next several hours was making sure he got the care he needed, both from me, his mom, and from the doctors and nurses at the hospital, who were wonderful.

By the end of the day, he was excited to be in his first cast, my daughter was excited to draw some pictures on it - and we ended the day the way we always did, cuddled up in my bed, reading a book, a little more exhausted than usual.

Grapefruit elbow, cast, day the cast came off.

I assumed I’d hear from the principal the next day, and the nurse, too. I thought certainly they’d call to check on him, on me, on all of us, but that call did not come. I didn’t need to hear “sorry” though that would have been nice. Just a call to check on how my son was doing - a kid who had not been looked after very well the day before.

The thought of him bending and straightening that little arm did me in. Wasn’t that plaguing the nurse? Some compassion was all I wanted. I guess they thought a call would indicate culpability.

Anyway, that was it for me. When we went back to school, neither the nurse nor the principal said a thing about it, though they both smiled fake smiles at me when I saw them. My son’s teacher apologized, she felt terrible, but I wasn’t upset with her - she’d deferred to the nurse.

I went to the district office and filed an intra-district transfer. Normally you have to go to the public school closest to you unless there’s a compelling reason to move. Apparently, the district being afraid you’re going to sue the pants off them for negligence is compelling enough. My son started second grade at a new school. The first day of classes, the principal was out front high-fiving all the kids on the way in. Parents, too.

Something has gone very wrong when people are so concerned about their own well-being, they lose their humanity. I don’t think it’s possible to be “well” - and blindly self-motivated simultaneously. We’re wired for connection, it’s how the species has survived this long, but it’s more than that - really seeing other people, and really being seen? There are few things better. I passed a woman on the street once, we didn’t even speak, but we smiled at each other and I still think about her sometimes and hope she’s okay.

Of course I understand we live in litigious times. A man cut me off while I was driving a few years ago, in such a way I could not avoid running into his car. Then he tried to sue me for back pain and emotional damages, even though he got out of his car and pinned me to the hood of mine, screaming expletives with wild, coked-out eyes. That sucks as much as not getting a call from the nurse. He didn’t win because there were witnesses, but it’s demoralizing that he tried in the first place.

Everyone gets to decide who they’re going to be in this world. Not everyone decides to be a lying shitweasel.

It’s the people who make choices that cause pain - emotional or otherwise - and then expect you (or me) to go on like nothing happened. They don’t get a place at my table anymore. They used to, but I think my standards changed when I had children. There were certain things I wasn’t going to tolerate on their behalf, and little by little I thought, why the fuck am I tolerating that on my behalf?

Common decency is not an unreasonable expectation from the people in your life, and neither is kindness. Mistakes are fine, god knows I make plenty of them - that’s what the words “I’m sorry” are for - but even those will wear thin if you don’t mean it and change your behavior. Changed behavior is a living apology - words are easy. I say that, but for some people words are not easy. There are people who will never say, “I’m sorry.” They are not easy to love, which doesn’t mean you can’t love them.

I like easy math when it comes to my friends, though. I have spent enough time in my life accepting apologies that were never given, or doing the work on both sides of the equation to get to a place of forgiveness and understanding because the other party refused to be accountable, to have the hard conversations, to admit to their own fallibility. My mother was like that. I miss her every day, but I don’t miss that part. It was exhausting and painful.

I’d rather have someone tell me to piss off than give me a fake smile. I’d rather have someone show me the respect of telling me the truth, than lie to my face. I prefer people who try to tell the truth in as kind a way as possible, but I’d still rather hear the prickly truth than a lie.

If you expect me to tolerate things that you never would, that is not respect. If you mistake my kindness for a lack of self-esteem, you won’t be mistaken for long. If you’re okay with your neighbor’s children or anyone’s children being zip-tied and thrown into the back of a U-haul, that isn’t Christianity unless you have a very strange Bible. It seems some people would deport Jesus himself if he showed up, for the sin of existing while Brown.

If you think women are just as worthy of dignity, trust and respect as anyone else, then act like it and vote like it. If you think abortion is murder, don’t have one. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. I don’t know anyone who’s like, “Hey, you know what would be fun this Saturday? Let’s have an abortion!” It means pro trusting women to figure things out - not voting for the government to control what happens to their bodies.

If you think that’s how it should be for women, then let’s do it for men. Women have been dealing with all the issues around birth control and growing people inside their bodies and pushing them out of a very, very small space and keeping them alive - forever - with very little support, and at this point, no respect. Federally mandated vasectomies for all pro-life men. Undo them when you want kids assuming you can find a woman who’d like to join you in that endeavor, problem solved, you won’t have to worry about abortions or birth control. Easy! You’re welcome.

Gotta say I find it amazing that there are people who call themselves pro-life and talk about the sanctity of life, but don’t see the irony in seeking the death penalty for women who get abortions, even if they get them because their own lives are at stake.

If you think marriage is between a man and a woman, then whatever - marry a man or a woman, I don’t care. Why do you care what other people do? Who assigned you to care? I’ll look after my own soul, you look after yours, I promise it will work out better for everyone that way. You want safe cities? Me, too! Guess who’s making them extremely, horribly, terribly unsafe right now? The president! It’s wild.

One of the other things I won’t tolerate anymore is people telling me how to feel. The nurse telling my son he was “fine” when he was not fine, and sending him back to class. Assuming she knew more about how he felt than he did - because why? Because she was a grownup? An expert? No one is more of an expert on you and how you feel than you. Ever.

There are things happening here in this country that are devastating, and if you are hurting because of that, or scared or depressed or overwhelmed - you are sane. We saw what it looked like here in Los Angeles with what was - in retrospect - their “soft launch” National Guard occupation, and we’re seeing it in Chicago with ICE agents and 200 Texas National Guard members, and 300 Illinois National Guard members who have been federalized - crawling the streets - and for what? To terrorize people?

In Portland peaceful protesters are being sprayed in the face with chemical agents and shot in the head with pepper bullets. In Memphis, immigration attorneys are warning clients trying to “do it the right way” they might be grabbed and deported if they show up to court. Blue states and Blue cities, where the president continues to pretend there is a war-zone in effect.

In go the ICE agents with their “roving patrols” targeting Black and Brown people, inciting swift and emotional protests. Then he calls the protests an “insurrection” led by “Antifa” so he can justify the National Guard troops and invoke the Insurrection Act before the midterms. Then we’re screwed, because at that point he can turn our own military against us.

If you’re still supporting this I’m sad for you and I mean it. You’ve been robbed of your ability to see what’s happening in your own country. You’ve decided undocumented grandmas should be treated worse than convicted sex-trafficking pedophiles, are you not seeing that? You’ve stopped caring about the people who matter, even if we don’t agree on everything - to give your allegiance to a madman and his court of lying shitweasels. I keep hoping you’re going to see it. I must be the most hopeful person anywhere.

If you love this country, then you ought to love the Constitution and want it to be upheld for everyone, how is that not clear?

Elbows up, friends, but do everything you can to keep it peaceful. They want violence. Give them blow-up chicken suits instead, Portland style. Or flower crowns, LA style. Make it glittery, wrap yourself in rainbows, go with friends when you go to protests. Don’t let them rob you of your humanity, and don’t stop hoping for it from others.

Sometimes the fall is hard and it hurts. Sometimes the thing that breaks is your heart, sometimes it’s your elbow. Look for the people who see you hurting and want to help. They’re everywhere.

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