Sick

The tree in our front yard is gorgeous.  It gives us a ton of shade, a ton of fun, and a ton of leaves that make our yard look like a yellow sea.  I love that tree!  But it is growing large enough to encroach too much on our home and into the street, so we called to get an estimate to have it pruned.  Since I love it so much, and because it is so big, we need a professional to do it right.  I made the appointment for today at 4:00pm, thinking I had plenty of time after Brennon's asthma prescription refill appointment at 2:20pm.  While still in the room at 3:10pm, without having seen the doctor, I called the tree trimmer to push our appointment back.  I made it home at 4:15pm.  It has been a while since I've spent that much time in a chair, waiting to see a provider.

Since 45 minutes had been shaved from my after-school hours, I felt very rushed to get dinner started, homework checked, and all of those wonderfully mundane chores started.  The tree trimmer happened to show up as I'd just put noodles in boiling water, added freeze-dried hamburger to the sauce, and started the timer.  I was thrown off as I walked out the front door to talk with the trimmer, since I was calling to Keilie to help me finish up dinner, closing the door as I was telling her to watch for burning.  I showed him the front tree, then remembered that we have an apple tree in the backyard that gave only two apples this year, so I talked with him about that tree as well.  By the time he was walking through our gate from the backyard, I was pretty much done with the busy day that I'd had.

"So, you have a sick son?"

Here is where I embarrass myself with how vain cancer has made me, how much my mind is still on cancer.

"Oh, actually, Caden passed away last month."

I barely missed barrelling into his back as he came to an abrupt and complete stop and whipped around to face me.

"Didn't you tell me that you were at a doctor's appointment for your son?"

And it hit me-- he wasn't speaking of the definition of "sick" that I am used to!  In all of the rush, I'd completely forgotten that I'd even been at the doctors'.  I blushed deep, apologizing for making it so awkward.  As he talked with me, apologizing for my loss, telling me he couldn't image losing one of his adult children (or one of his grandchildren), he stumbled over his words while watching the ground.  I wanted to be swallowed up in said ground.  I could not believe what I had done.  I don't know this man.  He does not know me.  Yet I thought he knew our story and was asking about my "sick" kid, the one that has been my whole world as a caregiver, the one that defined sickness forever more in our family.  Everything will forever be compared to cancer, for us.  My poor kids--  Oh, you have pneumonia?  Well, at least it's not cancer...