A Mother's Fear Realised

I have never been a superstitious person and I never will be. But yesterday, it was a Friday the 13th, and something happened that will always make me paranoid every 13th of the month that falls on a Friday.

I gave my son a slice of soft pear and he started choking on it. Yes he was choking big style. He could not breathe and he was gagging and his face was starting to turn a different colour as he struggled to get air. I managed to hook out bits of the fruit from down his throat with my index finger and I think from that point on he was actually fine as he started crying out of distress. But I wasn't out of distress myself. I was panicking that my husband could not hear the person he was speaking with on 999. The first response paramedic came no later than five minutes after we rang but to a mother those five minutes seemed like an eternity. My son was still coughing and crying and I was still panicking. When the paramedic got in he had a listen to Scott's breathing (through a stethoscope) and he said that he seems fine. The fact that he is crying is a good sign because that means he can breathe. Another couple of minutes and the ambulance got there and we took Scott to the hospital so that a consultant can check if any piece of the fruit got to his lungs. A couple of hours later he was cleared and we took him home.

This incident is a wake up call for me. These past few months I have had things in my mind and then there's me getting ill for nearly three weeks and having a relapse afterward. My mind has been burdened with so much stressful thoughts and life changing decisions hanging in the balance, waiting to be made and dealt with. I just feel that I've lost myself since coming to England and I am ready to find her again. But last night's horrifying experience made me realise that the things in my mind are not as important as I thought. The most important thing in the world is my son and his health and his safety. I am a mother. In several years time my son is going to leave the nest and will have a life of his own. I will have plenty of time for myself then. The most important thing that is worth thinking about is making sure my son grows up to be a kind, sensitive and empathetic person. God entrusted him to me and I shall not fail just because I am busy finding myself or the path I ought to take. It is my son's turn now and if I can't pave the path he needs to take when he is older, I shall help him decide which one is the right one.

Last night made me realise that so long as my son is breathing and his tiny heart is beating, nothing could go wrong enough in my life that could make me think less of myself or put me down - or scare me to death!