Hold You

I spent this past week caring for our designated baby so his parents could get away for a few days and kick up their heels some. He’s a darling child still young enough so he's never had a haircut and can’t yet say his S’s and, when the chips are down, just walks over to you and holds up his  arms to be carried.Those arms went up a lot during our four days together which was a challenge since I’m not accustomed to the fast-twitch muscle, clean-and -jerk maneuver necessary to lift him straight into the air, tote him out to the car and back again after our outings, much less trudge up four flights of stairs to get to the little slope-ceilinged attic room where we’ve set up his crib.“We just have to be really careful so we don’t fall” I said to him once, willing myself steady. “I hold you TT,” he said back, placing his  little starfish hand on my chest. As if that would keep us safe. As if the hand of one born in 2007 could ever ward off the fate awaiting one born in the 1940s.Still, I loved the sentiment, which more than made up for the fact that by the end of our time together I was so exhausted I caught myself pouring salad dressing into my coffee.Finally, at 5:30 Friday night, his parents came back and by 6:00 David and were driving the hundred miles north to our New Hampshire cottage, the only place I could think of where I might possibly be able to make the quick recovery I'd need to make to face the work-week now quickly approaching. It started to snow around Concord.  Three miles from our driveway a car 100 yards in front of us shot off the road and overturned. “Look at that, look at that!” shouted David, normally the calmest person on the planet. “Call 911!” he yelled, gripping the wheel so we wouldn’t also fly off the road.Within two minutes four emergency vehicles had arrived. Within 30 minutes we were huddled under the covers in our freezing cottage, cold but safe. The driver of that other car lying upside-down in the snow had a different fate and all I could think was, who held that poor soul in those darkest moments? Who in that person’s life suddenly startled into alertness knowing just knowing, that something awful had happened?