The Importance Of Letting Your Kids Know What's Going On (And A Plea To The Government To Turn The Lights On)

Long title, I know. Sometimes I just cannot make up my mind.


Last night the husband woke me up in the wee hours of the morning. After about fifteen minutes of debating the pros and cons of staying at home or going to the hospital, we chose life (somewhat exaggeration) and headed to the emergency room. I wondered aloud if we should wake the kids and tell them what was going on. Keeping in mind that our three are in their mid-to-late teens, with one on the verge of escaping the teenage years, he said to let them sleep. As we went out the front door and I climbed behind the steering wheel, I once again said, "I think I'll run back in and tell [the oldest]." With a face distorted by extreme pain, he shook his head no and simply said, "Drive now. Text later." And so we went.

Downtown is confusing enough to me in the daytime. Drape it with the cloak of night, and it becomes extremely confusing to this former one-stoplight-town kind of girl. The homeless wander in bigger numbers and the curbs- especially the curbs by the local hospitals, become crammed with people who, for whatever reason, have no place to lay their head (or choose not to). Add to the mix a government facility that is evidently saving money by shutting the lights off at night, and you have an one frustrated woman and one hurting man. By the time we located the dimly lit emergency room doors of the VA, that woman was on the verge of tears and that man could barely walk.

And somewhere in the midst of all that my phone rang.

It turns out at least one child heard the front door open and shut while another child heard the muffled groans of their dad. Not knowing what was going on, they woke up the other child and quickly discussed the possibility that something had happened to their parents. Now, you can blame their thinking on television or movies or the nightly local news, but the three of them put into action a plan that the husband has drilled into them in case they are ever in any doubt of their safety or those around them. I won't go into the details because then I might have to endure a lecture pertaining to the concept of a need-to-know-basis, but it goes without saying that he has prepared us all in the event of any unwelcome trouble in our home. I'm not saying it's a perfect plan, but it is a plan.

So anyway. The phone rang with a voice of panic on the other end. I assured them that we were all right, with the exception of their dad who was in the process of being whisked away in a wheelchair. I, in turn, received a brief lecture by at least two out of three kids informing me of the importance of letting them know what was going on. I couldn't have agreed more.

In the end, the husband was taken care of and the kids proved that they have paid attention to everything their dad has taught them and brainstormed some practical suggestions of their own to add. As he was falling into his drug-induced sleep, I told him that very thing.

"Good kids," he said. "We have good kids."

Amen to that.





Psst... it was kidney stones, in case you were wondering.