I got off the phone just now with my son. He said a lot of things, but now the thing that stays in my head as I try to go to sleep is his scraping his hand while bicycling. He didn't fall down, he said. He just lost control of the bike a little and instinctively used his hand to stop the bike by reaching out to the wall on the sidewalk. The wall is made of bricks so he scraped his palm. He said it hurt but it was much better than slamming into something.
As a father, I was a little worried, even though he is over thirty years old. I've always worried. But then suddenly I remembered that day. I didn't tell him, but it's not a secret, just that the memories slowly came back starting when he told me about his recent episode. Somehow I still see him as that little boy. We were on my old rickety bike. It had just stopped raining, and the road was muddy and wet. There's a little bridge over an irrigation ditch. The bridge was made of a few slabs of stones and since the stones aren't perfectly cut and there's nothing sealing them, there are gaps between the stones. All these years I've biked, whenever I had my children with me, I always watched for those gaps. Funny that I never even paid attention to where I was riding when I was by myself. But with my children, one in the front, one in the back, I always were many folds more careful, and I always dreaded those gaps. The chance that the bike would get in those gaps was small, but I always dreaded the gaps.
Then that day, the image of that day that resurrected when he, the grownup now, the same age I was that day, was telling me about his scraped hand from losing control of the bike. As if my own accumulated fears turned into a demon and directed my bike into one of the gaps. And when it did, my heart stopped, and all of us stopped, for a split second, before all of us, one adult flanked by two children, fell into the water. Was I screaming? I can't remember. I can't remember if anyone was screaming. My daughter was in front of me and I saw her fall into the irritation ditch while I felt my body plunge into the muddy water. I grabbed her immediately. The water was shallow, but I was worried. She was crying, and I held her while I turned to look for my son. Then there he was, standing there, water only waist deep, looking confused, but not crying. He was only about six. He was just standing there.
He was always standing after he fell. This wasn't the only time. He always stood since he could stand on his own. He fell down one time from the podium of the auditorium, a big crash, but by the time I got to the incident, I found him standing there, confused, but quiet, and standing. There were other times too. The panic of worries would instantly be overwhelmed not really by relief but more like wonderment. He was always standing.
That's the image I still have of him. I've seen him grow up into a man and then disappear into his world after moving out for college. But I never gave up the image of him as a little boy that always stood up after a fall. Just as I've never given up the image of him as the boy that got terribly sick from an acute case of hepatitis. That night I couldn't sleep. His fever was high and his face all jaundiced. Then there were the subsequent nights when I sat by him and fed him medicine and soup and waited. I just waited until he was asleep, and then I waited longer. That was a different picture of him, lying there, peaceful, with a cool damp towel on his burning head. I wondered if the fever would damage his nerves and cause him to be an invalid. I don't know. I fed him some nice, roasted meat that I shouldn't have for such a young child. It was my fault. Funny how guilt makes memories more permanent. I don't know where I read it, but once you get an acute case of hepatitis, you will always have the risk of getting it again. Really? It doesn't matter, I feel bad enough that I gave him that piece of meat. It didn't matter that I did so because I cared, that I always gave him the first piece of meat we get, before me, before my daughter. Now he was sick, lying there. He would recover three weeks later, a miracle. But the doctor warned me that he might get another episode of it. Since then, I had felt terrible, constantly waiting for that day when he gets another attack.
The same with the bike incident. I was the one riding the bike, I was the one pushing them into the irrigation ditch. It could have been worse, infinitely worse. But I was saved from my own stupidity. But now, I can't help him. I can't save him. He had to scrape his own palm to help himself. And I didn't see the adult version sliding his palm against the rough brick surface, but rather, the little six year old boy doing that in that city he is living in now that I don't know much about. I only imagined that he was riding my, broken old bike, through that old village between our apartment and the school. That's the image. He never tells me when he's sick, not even saying he doesn't feel all right, but every now and then, I imagine him, lying there, with a cool, damp towel on his forehead.
