A Child’s Illness
Ruth Ostrow; 21/6/08; ostrowr@theaustralian.com.au
Sitting in a cold hospital room in a children’s ward almost two years ago was the longest night of my life. We were waiting to find out how severe our daughter’s pneumonia was, and what sort of bug it was that had caused the collapse of one lung. I don’t remember too much of that night, so I can’t be specific. But one prognosis was going to be far more serious than the other. So tests were done, and results were pending; meanwhile the clock ticked on, ever so slowly.
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Only one parent could sleep in the room by the bed and I volunteered, knowing that I absolutely couldn’t go home. The bed was a sit-up chair which you pushed back with your legs and body but which sprang back up every time you turned to the left or right, giving new meaning to the movie title Wake In Fright.
What I do remember was that nothing else in the world mattered - not the cold, not the trembling, not the fact that I had vanished one afternoon into an ambulance and forgotten to cancel appointments or eat a proper meal for what ended up being three days. Recently, another anxious mum I know went through a similar experience that reminded me of this ordeal.
Both of us had a happy ending, but there’s a powerful Buddhist saying that I shared with her. It goes something like: “We don’t appreciate the joy of not having a toothache until we have a toothache.” Otherwise put, we don’t appreciate every second we don’t have a child in hospital, or a fatal disease, until we’re in crisis.
In this competitive, consumer society we’re trained to continually want more than we have and to compare ourselves “up”, not “down”. But there’s so much we take for granted because we forget how to live with the gratitude of not suffering.
And it’s OK to forget occasionally. It’s too stressful to focus on the existential terror of what we all know could be lurking around the corner. I’m a huge fan of distraction when it’s needed. But from time to time it’s also good to remember the absence of pain.
Whenever I get jealous of others or I crave more than I have, I think of the saying. When I get angry at my daughter, I think of that night. It just puts things in perspective. Acknowledging that we don’t have a toothache is something to smile about.