Entry #10: Life is not Perfect: Mistakes were Made

Month Four: Mistakes Were Made

I broke my daughter. Literally. I fractured her arm. It was the worst moment of my life and, thankfully, a moment that she’ll never remember. I was carrying her to the nursery and I tripped, falling forward. Luckily, there was a wall to my left so, by some Mommy instinct, I flung my body to the left in order to avoid dropping her or landing on her. I managed to absorb most of the fall with my shoulder but, unfortunately, her right arm got caught between my left arm and the wall, and I heard a sharp pop. We looked at each other for a moment in surprise and then she screamed in agony. My husband and I immediately rushed her to the ER. In the end, she only needed an Ace bandage to immobilize the arm for a few weeks. We felt incredibly blessed that nothing worse happened.

In the emergency room, I was terrified. I hated that she was in pain and worried that I’d permanently disabled her.  Once she was clearly comfortable and we were told that she would heal perfectly, I began to worry that she would hate me; that a deep-seeded seething anger would come from Mommy accidentally fracturing her arm.  But by the next day, after the hospital’s pain killers cleared her system, her beautiful, resilient, playful spirit was back in full force – she was smiling and playing with me and just slightly confused by this weird brown thing wrapped around her arm that wouldn’t allow her to suck her fingers. Her unconditional love allowed me to start forgiving myself. She reminded me of the frailty of life, the pointlessness of harboring resentments, and why it’s important to live every day well since you’re rarely in control of what happens next. Not bad for a chick who likes to wiggle around in her own wet, warm poop.