Stu,
A quick re-cap of our first times together.
One of the big news stories today is the confluence of three respiratory illnesses making the rounds. Our old friend the seasonal flu, the wuhan-bat-flu, and RSV which hits children pretty hard. I imagine you know that your sister Zoe had a bout with RSV soon after she was born resulting in a little stay in the ICU at Rainbow Baby & Children’s hospital. Obviously, she got healthy and became the feisty little firecracker we all know and love. What I don’t think you know about is the collateral damage of it, and how this particular event traumatized you and me. Thankfully we were saved by a likely hero!
A little background: Kind of like the economic state of today, my spidey-sense was tingling in 2007 about a bubble in the housing market. The housing market does not trouble me today because I have no plans to buy or sell, but back then, Vicki & I wanted to move out of the city and into the country a little. We hatched the clever plan where we would sell our Euclid home first, rent for a year, wait for prices to pull-back/crash, then buy a bit of country. We started following this elegant plan. We quickly sold our house and moved back to the upstairs apartment in my parents’ Euclid duplex, where I was raised. So far so good? Here’s the story of the trauma.
It’s a cold January morning 2008 and Vicki is at work and my mom is somewhere else as well. I’m working on my laptop at a folding plastic table we were using as a kitchen/dining/office-work table. We had a dorm size fridge, a microwave, an electric skillet, and two cats, in the upstairs apartment. We were living large!
My phone rings, I see your dad’s number and I pick up. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: “Hey Steve, what’s u…”
He tersely cuts me off with the question: “Are you home?!?”
Me: What’s going o…”
He curtly and loudly interrupts again: “ARE YOU HOME?!?!?”
I answer: “YES, why? what’s goin..”
He interrupts again “I’ll be there in five minutes to drop off Stewie because we’re rushing Zoe down to Rainbow”
Me: “Holy shit, okay”
Now I’ve confessed to you before my extreme discomfort around most things involving children. Suffice to say, 14 years ago, I was even worse.
Panicking and in my stocking feet I run down the carpeted steps almost going ass over tea kettle. Into my parents’ home I slide and find my dad in his recliner reading the newspaper while watching the news.
“dad, Dad, DAD! Holy shit. Steve is going to drop his kid off here and expects me to watch him!”
My father Ron lowers his newspaper and looks over the top of it at me, “why?”
“Hell if I know, something about taking the baby to Rainbow… downtown”
Ron, with his calmness diametrically opposed to my panic, says: “It’s okay, we’ll be fine, just bring him in here”
Two seconds later I hear pounding at the side door and head towards it. I barely get to swing the door open six inches then your dad says, “I’ll call you later” and proceeds to shove you through the crack of the door. That side-door landing is also right next to the basement staircase, so you then almost go ass over tea kettle down those stairs. Bouncing down would have hurt more because at least the ones I almost fell down three minutes earlier had padded carpeting. I catch your shoulder and hold you there for a second
So, there’s me panicking, with a 3-year-old you, with a bewildered astonished face staring up at me. I remember easing you back from the edge of the staircase taking you by the hand and walking you into my parents living room to meet my dad. I remember him tousling your hair a bit and saying, “Hi Stu”.
It seems funny in retrospect, but I have no recollection of anything past that. I don’t know how long you stayed. I don’t know if you cried, slept, or ate. I don’t know if Vicki or my mom came home while you were there. I don’t know who picked you up or anything else. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d think one of your aunts came by to collect you not long after. I guess that, because if you had stayed longer, I’m certain something else would have created a scary panic moment for me so I’d remember it. OR, maybe you did stay longer, and it was so traumatic I have PTSD about it and blocked it out of my memories.
I just remember our first terrifying one-on-one time was calmed by my cool-headed dad Ron, who knew how to calm us both down and handle the crisis like an old hand.