Thus read the headline of the imaginary newspaper article I composed yesterday afternoon while I used my shirt to wipe away the blood and tears from Isaac's face.
In order to take off my sweater, I had put Isaac down on the couch. Mistake. Big mistake. I even knew it was a mistake while I was doing it. "But, I'll take off my sweater really fast. He won't have time to fall," I thought. Well, in the time that my eyes were covered by the inside of my sweater, Isaac moved to the edge of the cushion. Through the neck hole in my shirt, I watched him to do a swan dive directly onto the living room floor, his head snapping back. There was a momentary pause followed by the loudest, saddest, most accusatory (well, not really, but he would certainly have been justified) cry I've ever heard.
Immediately I picked him up and pressed him to my chest, holding his head, feeling his neck and the top of his spine, wondering if I would be able to feel the cracked vertebrae with my fingers. Lifting him up to look at his eyes, all I saw was the blood. In Isaac's mouth. On his chin. It was everywhere, all over the front of my white t-shirt. It was several seconds before I realized that he'd bitten his lower lip. His two perfect front teeth--thankfully, still in place--had left two tiny indents in the flesh of his lip, which was ever so slightly beginning to swell.
At this point, I started to cry too. Then I called Anique. She was on her way home, and I tried to sound calm when she picked up the phone. "Isaac fell off the couch. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. He bit his lip and there's blood, but I think he's ok. I'm so sorry. Will you be home soon? I can't believe I let this happen." On the other end of phone, Anique was calm. In my arms, Isaac had stopped crying and was using his fingers to inspect his wounds. I pulled his hands away and he looked up at me and wailed. "Fly's in the sugar bowl, What'll I do?" Undisturbed by recent events, from our computer speakers, Pete Seeger continued to sing. I opened the outside door and Isaac stopped crying as we watched the cars drive by and waited for Anique to get home.
Well, as veteran parents know, Isaac was fine. "He's already forgiven you," Anique said, after arriving home. From her lap, nursing lazily, Isaac looked at me. There was no hint of outrage, no plans for revenge, in his beautiful brown eyes. But, even now, I can still see him falling. Such a scary image. I know that this kind of thing, and much worse--a fall off the swing, a slip on the stairs--happens and that it will happen again, no matter how vigilant I am. And, in an effort to learn from my son's compassion, I have forgiven myself.
But, next time I want to take off my sweater, I will place Isaac on the floor. Or maybe I'll just be hot.
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