How could anything so awful happen on Mother's Day?

[The Story Teller]

How could anything so awful happen on Mother's Day?

Mama-What a Beautiful Word
by LeeAnn Cowen

Quincy, Florida

I raced the car through the near-deserted streets toward the hospital, trying to swallow the panic in my throat. I dared not look toward the passenger side where Ken held our two-year-old son's limp body against his chest. Patrick, please don't die, I thought wildly. The plea filled my mind. Yet beneath the surface a heavy thought was rumbling, the thought that all this was my fault.

My foot must have eased off the accelerator, for suddenly Ken cried, "Keep going, LeeAnn. Don't stop!" My foot angled down again and the car shot around a corner, sending the tires screeching on the pavement. Just drive, I told myself, trying to concentrate.

This was Mother's Day. How odd. It seemed impossible that this quiet, gentle afternoon could have erupted into anything so awful. I had decided to drive to the store for some disposable diapers. I didn't want to leave Ken and Patrick, who were playing ball on the front lawn; but diapers are the kind of thing you can't do without. I smiled at Patrick's drooping "big boy" training pants as sauntered toward the car parked in our uphill driveway. Well, at least we were trying to do without them.

"Let's go inside, Patrick," Ken called.

I caught sight of them through the windshield — Ken ambling across the grass in the late afternoon sun, Patrick toddling after him, blond hair curling around his ears like a little golden halo. Patrick was our only child, and such a daddy's boy. He would follow Ken anytime, anywhere . . .

I fumbled with my purse for a moment or two, found the key and slipped it into the ignition. I gave one quick look in the rearview mirror and started the car down the driveway. Then suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw Ken running toward me, waving his arms and shouting. His words barely penetrated the windows of the car.

"Stop!" he was screaming.

What on earth could be the matter? But as I slammed on the brakes, a strange, icy feeling shivered through me. Patrick . . . where was —

The door burst open. Ken leaped in holding our son's crumpled body. Patrick's eyes were closed and a trickle of blood oozed from one ear. A muffled, eerie cry drifted from his lips. I gazed at him, unable to move, unable even to breathe. I met Ken's eyes. They told me the unthinkable. I had hit my son.
"Drive to the hospital, LeeAnn," Ken said with amazing calmness. I lurched out of the driveway, racing headlong into the nightmare.

I careened into the emergency entrance of the hospital. A nurse whisked Patrick away. Each minute seemed packed with an eternity of its own as Ken and I paced about the waiting room.

"Happy Mother's Day." The greeting floated in the distance from a patient's room. I nearly choked at the words. Little boys don't die on Mother's Day. I thought. That heavy, sick feeling was bearing down on me again — a weight of blame that hung beneath my ribs.

Gradually family members arrived.

The police arrived, too. An officer flipped open a tablet and began asking questions. "How carefully did you look behind you, Mrs. Cowen?"

I held onto Ken's arm. I was sure if I let go, the question would pull me to the floor.

"I- I looked in the mirror," I said feebly. "But I didn't see him. He is so little —" My voice cracked.

The officer was only doing his job, but the questions added to the weight of guilt already inside me. Why should I expect him to understand how such a thing could happen, when I didn't understand it myself? Who could?

"You think it's my fault, too," I said.

The policeman was silent, but Ken turned around to me and said, "LeeAnn, it's not your fault. why, if you think about it like that, I'm just as much to blame."

The policeman stared at us for the longest, saddest moment, then closed his pad and left.

Dusk crept around the hospital windows. Finally a neurosurgeon appeared on the fringes of our little group of relatives. "I need to speak to the boy's parents . . . alone." There was something ominous in his eyes.

"Will Patrick have brain damage?" Ken asked abruptly as the three of us gathered to the side. The question about living or dying was too unbearable to ask.

"My only concern now is for his life," he answered flatly. "We'll worry about brain damage if he . . . if he makes it."

I searched the doctor's face for a glimmer of hope. But there was none.

As the reality of what had happened seeped in, the weight inside grew so heavy I sank into a chair and shook with sobs. The car had run completely over Patrick's head. His skull was severely fractured — crushed on the right side — leaving the pressure around his brain dangerously high. Immediate surgery was necessary.

There was nothing to do but wait. In the corridors visitors passed with flowers. For their mothers, I imagined. Everywhere there were reminders that this particular day in spring was Mother's Day. Suddenly I felt like the worst mother in all the world. The thought made no sense, of course. But then nothing was making sense.

"It's nobody's fault," my family said. To my intellect the words sounded perfectly rational. But on another level — in a place deep in my heart, where logic could not reach — I only knew my child was lying on an operating table and I had somehow put him there. Patrick, I'm so sorry! I wanted to shout.

My Aunt Mary Jo had been staring at me from across the room, her eyes looking deep into me. She walked over and put her arm around me. "Remember, God is with Patrick. But He's with you too. He can help you both," she said simply.

Both. I blinked at her. Perhaps God could help Patrick. I knew many people were already praying for him. But me? Even if I deserved God's help, the blame was already carved too deeply. Besides, my feelings didn't matter. Only Patrick.

Yet her words did give me hope for my son. They cleared away much of the cloud of fear that had settled around me and focused my eyes on the only source of hope I really had.

Moments later Ken and I were wandering through the stillness of the hospital to the chapel. God is with Patrick. Aunt Mary Jo's words whispered in my thoughts. I didn't bother recalling the rest of them.

Inside the chapel I dropped into a pew, holding Ken's hand. We gazed at the little altar in silence. I simply sat there with my heart beating out the only prayer I had. "God, be with Patrick. Help him become well and whole again."

When I first saw Patrick after surgery, I knew my prayer would take a miracle. I was allowed into ICU where he lay in a coma. He seemed nearly lost beneath the strange array of tubes and machines. His head was bandaged, the ring of blond curls all gone. I took his hand in mine. "Patrick, what have I done to you?" I said.

Days passed. Patrick hung on. Everyone's thoughts turned to the possibility of brain damage. Then one day Ken rushed out of Patrick's room shouting, "He said a word!" I hurried inside. At first there was nothing but the same slow, unconscious breathing, and then Patrick's eyes flickered open in my direction. He opened his mouth.

"Mama," he said.

Mama. What a beautiful word.

After that his recovery was an unwinding of the delicate strands of a miracle. He began to talk and eat. In a matter of weeks we were able to carry him home. Patrick had to learn to walk all over again. But as the months went by, he grew and healed as if the accident had never happened. No brain damage . . . no physical limitations. Aunt Mary Jo had been right about Patrick.

But my scars did not go away as Patrick's did. Ghostly images of the accident moved across my mind. The sense of blame was never far away. That irrational feeling of doubt about myself as a mother haunted me. And the more unsure I grew about myself, the more protective I became of Patrick. I hardly let him out of my sight.

The heaviness of blame along with all the problems it was causing seemed to close in on me as yet another Mother's Day approached. How could I face that day?

We packed up and drove to Georgia to spend the weekend with my parents, thinking it would put some distance between me and the memories. But I awoke Sunday morning painfully aware of the heaviness. This cannot go on, I thought.

Ken was up early. I sat on our bed with Aunt Mary Jo's words edging into my thoughts again. God can help you both.

"Lord, You've helped Patrick so much. His very life is a miracle. Today I need You. Please help me, too," I prayed.

I was still sitting there when the door opened. In bounded Patrick with Ken behind him. "Happy Mother's Day," they chanted.

I tried so hard to smile, but ended up biting my lip. Suddenly Patrick wound his arms around my neck. "I love you," he said, and his words seemed to melt right into me. Through it all, despite it all, Patrick loved me. Then all at once, I was thinking not of Patrick's love, but God's. A love that went beyond a child's. And somehow in the mystery of that moment, it seemed Patrick's arms belonged to God, too . . . as if it was really God
Who'd said those healing words to me.

Right then something became clear to me, something I'm sure God wanted me to see. That no matter what we've done as parents — the mistakes, big and small, intentional or unintentional — God understands and still counts us worth loving. He only wants us to offer Him the burdens and scars and go on.

There was a freedom in that truth I couldn't explain, for the blame which had tormented me for so long was at last beginning to break up.
I looked down at Patrick and thought how true it really is . . . God is there for fragile children and fallible mothers, both.

The above article originally appeared in the May 1984 issue of Guideposts. To subscribe to Guideposts

Submitted by Richard