“Thank you, I’ll be right there!”, I drop the phone and try to breathe. “Your daughter has had a seizure, we are not sure what caused it, we have called an ambulance but you should come to the school right away.” I replay the words in my head and I am actively fighting panic. Oh Lord, not my daughter, not another thing, please Lord I need a break. The old “poor me” mentality is scratching at the back of my head. I push down that voice that tells me, “everything bad happens to me”, that voice that says to me, “you do not deserve happiness”, and I replace it with truth, with the voice of my Father, his voice that says, “I am here, you belong to me, give this to me and I will carry it.” Another deep breath, and a plea, “Please God protect my daughter, she is only 9 and has already been through too much in her short life”. I grab my keys and head to the Elementary School. When I arrive I am met by the principle and my daughters 5 grade teacher. My daughters teachers approaches me first. I ask her, “What happened, she has never had this kind of thing happen before?” “All the kids were standing on the bleachers preparing to practice for the fall show when we noticed your daughter staring strangely then suddenly timbered forward”, her teacher is wringing her hands as she speaks, the evidence of her concern. This teacher has been with my daughter for 4 of her 5 short elementary school years, she has been devoted, patient, and supportive throughout our tumultuous and tragic past. She has become more then just a teacher to my daughter, she has become our friend. The worry is mapped out in the lines around her eyes and furrowed forehead. She blinks rapidly to fight back tears, she continues, “Her classmates standing by her noticed her start to fall and caught her before she hit the ground, she did not hit her head in the fall, she shook for about 7 seconds then laid still for about a minute before she came to.” It starts behind my eyes, that buzzing, like one of those cheap hotel beds that you put a quarter in and it shakes, spreading through me like a virus, my eyes start to burn and a glass shard rock has lodged itself in my throat making it impossible to speak. I lift a shaky hand to wipe a treacherous tear from my cheek. The principle begins to speak now but I am having a hard time hearing past the ringing that has started in my ears. She says something about an ambulance on the way, something about contacting a Neurologist to make sure she hasn’t had an epileptic episode, I am numb. I follow them to the “sick” room within the schools office and when I see my daughter laying on the cot the dam breaks and I begin to sob. I am kneeling on the floor next to her cot holding her tightly. “Everything is going to be ok, we will figure out what happened.” I am speaking into to the back of her head, that space behind our ears where hair doesn’t grow, that space that is always warm and soft. I am trying to comfort her as well as myself. “Ivy”, my daughters teacher breaks in, “You might want to call someone to take you to the doctors, someone who can be with you through this……”.
Who do I call, who do I have that will go through this with me? Since Ash has left its just been me and the girls. I have my mom, I always have my mom, I have work colleagues I could call, I have friends that I know would rally behind me, but I want protection right now, I want strength, I want comfort……..I want Ash.