Oct. 07, 2001 - 22:23 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

How Do You ?

As a very little child not able to communicate, there would be times when I would get sick, and I didn't know what sick was. All I knew was that the world was very unfriendly to me for a reason unknown, and it was getting worse instead of better.

By a quirk of fate I suffered no severe illness those times, I was told. I began to experience such things as skinned knees, knocks on the noodle all were understandable sources of pain to me.

Things that were not understood by me were such things as my hay fever, accompanied by dripping nose, stuffed sinuses and scratchy eyes segueing into a winter cold. But I hankied hurriedly at times and rubbed my eyes more than I should --- and just coped the best I could. It was explained to this little guy (me darn it) that some people were just unlucky and had hay fever.

Two things I never understood were croup and earaches. Now croup was not too hard to bear, coughing in volleys and having grown ups feed me ipecac and other attentions with their attempts to help were all woven into the same tapestry.

Now earaches were quite a different thing for me. I would get this terrible pain which seemed to go from my ear inward to the center of my head and hurt like the devil. As it continued the pain would increase to a level that I as crying non-stop. Dad would gently blow cigarette smoke in my ear, repeatedly. Grandma had what I think she called Sweet Oil which she warmed its bottle in hot water to approximate body temperature and dripped in my ear. Both of those things helped, but the magic seemed to be the smoke in the ear, oil in the ear and the final medicine was on my Mom's lap, her arms around me and comforting words sweetly said to me. Finally the earache would be over and a very sleepy and tired Douggie would be put to bed.

Trying to look back down the long aisle of the years and figure things out a bit, a thing or two come to mind. I would guess that my earaches had a definite shelf life, or head life (not related to head lice guys) you might say. I also think the warm smoky breath did help and then too I think that Grandma's oil dripped in my ear helped.

I think that nestling in Mom's lap with her arms around me and her beautifull words were, "Cure Psychosomatique," and came at the very right time as my earache was subsiding I guess, but did comfort me and let me go to bed feeling loved and secure. And I still long for the softness and warmth of my Mom's body and her comforting words.

As we began to bring into the world our brood, the hardest thing for me was when as babies one of our kids hurt, it was obvious to me, but I could never figure out where the baby hurt or why it made me so damn ditsy. Heather who with her inborn female mothering instinct seemed to know what was hurting and what to do about it. I was pretty good at doing what I was told, and learned to burp a baby adequately, hold a baby in my arms while rocking in the chair and bounce a baby on my knee. But Heather ramrodded the action.

When our kids began to communicate I was much more help to Heather and could handle stuff that her female family couldn't do.

I remember one Thanksgiving day at Grandma's and Grandpa's house, he was called to the kitchen to cut the turkey. As a butcher, all his knives were sharp as razors but as usual he had to give the knife a few licks on the steel to whet it to the peak of its cutting ability. He rinsed the knife under the hotwater faucet and carrying the knife point down sharp edge to the back was doing the best he could to act in a safe manner.

But, my little son came running from his cousin and came up from behind Grandpa, face first he went into the knife.

A second before the event the kitchen was crowded with women folk, the second after, there was just Grandpa, myself and my son. We loaded son in the car with a damp washrag held up to his nose and made a run to the emergency room. A very efficient doctor took a look, got the bleeding stopped, put merthiolate on the cut and applied a fantastic butterfly bandage to son's nose.

When the cut healed there was a very fine line scar. And at his age of 57 there is no scar visible.

There were other incidents when I was the prime care giver until Mom was able to take care of our child.

But with a little child not able to talk, how do you know what is wrong, How Do You ? . . . . . . . . .

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