ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605060023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
"NOTHING HURTS me," says the 5-year-old, when I suggest that perhaps cowboy boots are not the best footwear for climbing on the monkey bars.
Actually, he says nuften hurts me, but I know what he means. The problem is, I can't stop thinking about all that could hurt him. He and his siblings are my responsibility for a mere 48 hours, but in that time anything could happen. Terrible accidents, incomprehensible tragedies are over - their results irreversible - in seconds.
My imagination works overtime. Fires, broken necks, careering automobiles, out of control, defective seatbelts that reveal their defects too late. Apparently sound bunk beds that suddenly give way; apparently friendly dogs that viciously bite; apparently fresh food that hides ptomaine. I see danger everywhere.
"Please," I say to the 5-year-old, "be careful." "My mommy and daddy let me," he lies.
I say, "Well, they're not here right now, and I am. So in the meantime ... " "In the meantime," he counters, with his very best grin, "you're being mean." But it's a mean world, I want to scold him. Pay attention to me!
Kidnappings, murders, accidental shootings. Bullies on the school bus, randomly thrown rocks, hate crimes, hidden prejudice, rape. Children are starving! Children are suffering! Children are sleeping under interstate bridges because they have no other place to go! But all that would terrify him. So, I laugh at his joke.
Besides, I know what he means. He means that he loves me. He means that he's glad I'm here, watching over him, loving him back, being the kind of aunt who cares whether he falls off the monkey bars, the kind of aunt he can tease.
So, I say again, "Just be careful, will you?" "I'm always careful," he says.
Then one foot slips off the monkey bars and he almost falls. He gives me that big-eyed, silly look: "Ooops!" And I say, "See? See! Are you all right?" He says, "Nuften hurts me." His 10-year-old brother comes home with blood on both knees.
"What happened to you?" I ask.
He says, "I don't know." And, apparently, he honestly doesn't. How could a kid not notice falling and skinning his knees? "They don't hurt," he says.
But I make him let me clean the wounds anyway.
The 6-year-old has a big scratch on her forehead. "Did you have a fight with one of the cats?" She shrugs. She smiles her winning smile. She really can't remember. Probably, that's what happened. But does it really matter? In the night, the 8-year-old coughs. Once. Twice. Another time. I lie in his mother's bed across the hall and listen. It could be allergies. Or, it could be pneumonia, rheumatic fever, congestive heart failure, some malady even worse that I can't name. I tiptoe across the hall and whisper his name.
"What?" he says irritably.
"Are you all right?" He grunts, asleep again already.
A friend who has children says real mothers are too busy, and too tired, to indulge their imaginings. "You just can't let yourself think about it," she says. "Otherwise, you'd go mad." I can see that. I'm nearly mad myself. After only 48 hours.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB