Oh My Goodness

I just experienced my first heart palpitation.

Lyra, my three-year-old daughter, has had a low-grade fever for the past three days. Last night was the worst of it: her forehead was burning, we couldn't get her to eat anything but a single blue popsicle, it took us an hour to convince her to take tylenol and the only reason she did was because we threatened her with a cold bath. For hours she lay feverish in my arms before Chris was finally able to transfer her to her bed.

Something happens when you're a parent, a strengthened fear-response that allows you to jump to many conclusions in the off-chance that you need to act on any of them. When your child is sick - very sick - your mind races. Is she going to die? Should I race this child that finally fell asleep to the ER? How do I know if it's serious? And in the end you check on them every half hour just like you did when they were brand-new and you were acutely aware that every year thousands of brand-new babies die for no good reason.

That's the entire investment of parenthood. Your children have to live. Of course you want them to be happy and fulfilled, and you want to help them grow up into wonderful and caring human beings, but above all else, you want them to just... live.

At three o'clock in the morning I heard a knock on my bedroom door. Lyra stood there, sleepy-eyed and feverish, asking if she could sleep in my bed. (The last time this happened she woke me up by throwing up all over me, but parents are somehow incapable of holding this against their children.) She padded over to my bed and promptly stole my favorite pillow.

This morning I opened my eyes and stared directly into a pair of very blue lips.

For an eternity of a moment, time stopped. Instinctively I grabbed her face, her skin shockingly cold to the touch after days of hot fever, and I shook her by the shoulder, calling her name, trying to re-start time.

I don't know how I didn't wake her. I'll spoil the ending and tell you that she was very much alive, that the only response I got out of her was a scrunched-up face and a nose-rub. And I was wide awake, staring at her blue-popsicle-grubby, no-longer-feverish face, not able to comprehend a reality that went the other way but hoping that I never, ever, have to feel that feeling again.

Now Lyra's watching Bob the Builder, her lips now bright red from a new cherry popsicle. She happy. Occasionally she comments on the absurd happenings on television, but mostly she bounces around, back to her normal self. She's earned a final day home from school, I think. I'm glad to have her here.