This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 6:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I blame Molly’s ruptured appendix for her leaving me.
I blame that infected inconsequential sac located between the small and large intestine for Molly moving 600 miles away from home to go to Sacramento State.
Follow me:
If Molly hadn’t had appendicitis on her field trip in second grade…if she hadn’t puked in the bushes near where the bus was parked, where her classmates could see her…if the bus driver hadn’t yelled at her to make sure she didn’t dirty his bus with her vomit…if she didn’t lay ill in my bed for four days while Bill was in Philadelphia for business…if I hadn’t taken her to Dr. Anderson’s after four days and if he hadn’t told me to get in my car and take her to Children’s Hospital…if they hadn’t admitted her after diagnosing a ruptured appendix, performed an appendectomy and told us she had to stay in the hospital for seven days while they pumped antibiotics into her system to kill all the bacteria…if from that moment on Molly couldn’t imagine leaving my side the way I’d been in the hospital with her…maybe if Bill and I hadn’t separated and then divorced around this time…if she hadn’t gotten adhesions, scar tissue, from her appendectomy a year later…if Molly hadn’t panicked every day at school (What if I have to go to the bathroom? What if I start throwing up and can’t stop? What if I lose control the way I did in second grade?)… if she hadn’t sat rigid in her classrooms, stoic, focusing on the teacher (What is he saying?) and not concentrating on the fact she had to pee or go to the bathroom… if she could have asked for a hall pass…if she hadn’t had a full blown panic attack in eleventh grade while she watched a film about Hiroshima…if she hadn’t gone to a therapist and talked about the what ifs (What if my appendix hadn’t burst? What if my parents hadn’t divorced?) and the whys (Why me? Because I’m a bad person. I deserved all this.)… if Molly hadn’t gotten well, strong, made homecoming court, and won Best Personality Senior Standout, and if she hadn’t come to me and said, “I’m not going to San Diego State. I’m going to Sacramento State because I have to prove to myself I can do it.”
If Molly hadn’t had a ruptured appendix, would she have stayed closer to home?
Read the first chapter of HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO: A MOTHER’S STORY.
