When the Journey Takes a Detour

21 Elul, Tuesday, September 16

The Limestone trip this year began in the month of Av, just three days before Rosh Hodesh Elul, the final month of the Jewish year.  Nevertheless, the season of Elul, with its call to contemplation of the meaning of our lives, arrived a few days early for me. On the day we were to drive up to Maine, I was sitting at the bedside of our twenty-year-old son Yonah in a hospital room as he recovered from an appendectomy.

Any parent who has worried about a child who is in pain knows the cauldron of emotion that arises at such a time. From the first moments when Yonah described his pain, I worked to balance my own growing concern with my responsibility to keep calm. While going through each step, from the call to urgent care, to the doctor’s visit, to the hours spent in the ER, Brian and I sought to keep it all in perspective, for Yonah’s sake as well as our own.

But when we finally saw him wheeled down the corridor to the operating room, I allowed myself to know fear. Of course my rational self knew that the odds were very good that this would be a routine procedure and he would come out just fine. But my rational self was in a struggle with all the ways that my mind imagined the procedure could go wrong. Brian and I didn’t speak about it. We didn’t speak much at all. Just being together provided a blanket of comfort and hope, while the fear rustled the sheets beneath.

Fortunately, by the time Brian and I returned from a quick trip home for dinner, the surgeon called my cellphone to report that Yonah was coming out of surgery – in one piece. Within the hour we were able to see him. We did not leave his side until he had been wheeled into a room of his own and was settling in for the night.

As soon as we awoke on Sunday morning, we sped to the hospital. I spent the entire day in Yonah’s hospital room. While he slept off the anesthesia, I had a lot of time to think.  I reviewed the past twenty years, from choosing Yonah’s name to his college experiences. I considered the hopes and dreams I had for him so long ago and the miracle of his own growth in body and mind. I wondered whether I had been a “good enough” mother and  what our relationship might be as he sets off on his own. I marveled that we had never been in this situation before: no surgeries, no broken bones, no stitches. Poo-poo-poo.

I was also filled with awe. Awe at the medical advances that prevented the outcomes I dreaded. Awe at the capacity of the human body to assist in its own repair. Awe at the inexpressible bond between a mother and son.

Sitting by Yonah’s bedside, my heart pulled taut by its indestructible tie to that strong young man, lying in pain. Then I thought of others in pain, others in hospitals. But for this moment, he was the one I had to give my full attention. Being with him was my responsibility. I cannot deny that my deepest connections are to my children, my partner, my close family. And yet, being with him opened my eyes, and my heart I pray, to the suffering of other mothers and children.

That is the way that God works in the world as I know it. When we open our hearts fully to experience the fullness of our own emotions, we also become more attuned to the experience of others. That’s the Elul lesson I learned that day:  to be fully present to those I care about the most also creates the capacity for empathy. Yonah’s recovery proved to be a source of blessing for him and for us in so many ways.