To Max . . .

On the Occasion of Him Learning to Crawl

It was with some alarm that I noticed blood dripping from our newborn son’s diaper. He had just returned from the recovery room following his circumcision and we thought the doctor had botched it. The nurses rushed our son back to surgery where another surgeon attempted to stop the bleeding. Finally after a blood transfusion and many tests, they figured out that he had severe hemophilia, a condition that our family had no history of.

Max’s hemophilia changed my simple understanding of how to care for babies and of the dangers of head injuries or the bruising that could happen from merely picking him up. He fundamentally increased my awareness and stress response to normal childhood injuries. To this day, I try to catch any toddler, stranger or not, who looks like he is about to fall on the sidewalk or bang his head into a table. How carelessly normal their parent’s lack of concern seems.

His life and death made me, as a good friend recently observed, the man I am today. I have to agree with her, for good and bad, and on so many levels.

Though he would have been 21 years old today, he will always be just shy of three to me. Here’s a sweet memory of him . . .

Learning to Crawl

He never expects the bruises.

Delightfully unaware
he beetles around the room.

      Hands down
                back hunched
                              bottom up
                toes tipped
      almost near walking
      but afraid to crawl.

His knees shadowed and bruised,

juicy like peaches
suffering from a fall

               -- Tommy Stringer 2003