Love

When my daughter was very sick for one of the first times in her life, my father drove out to spend the day with us. My husband happened to be away at a conference and I didn't want to be alone. My mother was still working so my father took the two hour drive out to be with me alone. We spent the day taking turns holding that hot little bundle, taking her temperature, trying to get her to suck some milk down. At one point her temperature rose to about 105, her cheeks turned bright pink, and we got scared. How could such a little body hold so much heat? The doctor told us to wait until morning. If the fever didn't break by then, I should take her in. Dad was worried, "You should take her in tonight, just take her in." But, I wanted to wait.

The very first time she had a high fever, J and I took her in to the pediatrician's office and got the doctor who, while thorough, was altogether too quick to send us to the emergency room for x-rays, blood, and urine tests. (If you don't know, getting a infant chest xray is no small feet and requires padlocking the child in what looks like an up right iron lung. The urine test which required intubation was a painful and drawn out failure that we vowed never to allow again.) The child had nothing more but a bad fever and cold and was on the mend by the next day.

My father who by nature was a terrible worrier didn't want me to wait but he didn't press which was probably really hard for him because he worried so much. He held her long into the evening making sure I got dinner and left only when I insisted he go home to sleep.

E woke in a glistening puddle of sweat that night and sucked to her heart's content. I called Dad the next morning and told him that she was alright.