Taylor Swift, White Boards and SickKids: a triumvirate

This is my 500-word essay explaining my connection to SickKids and children’s health - as a mother to an avid TSwift fan does when concert tickets are the dangling carrot.

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It’s been 11 years since SickKids saved your life. One day you will understand. But not yet. I mean you see your scar. You can touch it. But you don’t remember. And that’s good. That’s for us to bear as parents. That’s what we signed up for.

Of course, we didn’t know exactly what we were signing up for. What parent expects to get the news that their child “has a very significant heart problem.” I certainly didn’t. The different faces of doctors and technicians forever seared into my brain, morphing from confident to mournful along with me.

Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash

But we also didn’t know that there would be a hospital waiting to save us. To save you.

Last year, when I started to cry like I always do at our appointments and you looked at me slightly confused (like you always do), Dr. Marshall said, “Violet, your mom is crying because you had heart surgery.”

I nodded, reaching for a tissue. But I realized there was more.

“Actually, today, I’m crying about my prolonged grief.”

Both of you tilted your heads to the side.

“It might be better if I draw it out.”

I pulled out my white board before either of you could object and dug around in my purse for my white board markers.

“Grief, you see, is a very complex emotion and sits over here.”

I wrote the word grief on the whiteboard and put a circle around it.

“It’s long lasting for me—grief. It’s a present-day emotion. Not a thing of the past. Like maybe even regular, but especially during some seasons. Like Cross Country season, for example, which happens once a year in September. Turns out September is a grief laden month for me, where I am faced with wondering if the reason running is such a challenge for you is because of you or me. Is it the way your heart pumps or is it my cautious parenting that didn’t encourage you to go full out? Grief is sometimes mixed with guilt.

“Wow,” you both said at the same time. I believe you rolled your eyes.

“So…September is my grief. Grief is also every friend’s new birth announcement (“It went perfectly!”) as I recall all the fear around your birth and the lightness that isn’t available to me when I talk about “birth stories” anymore. So…birth stories are my grief.”

I stood up at that point to stretch my legs, hoping you would both follow suit.

“Ahem. But on the other side of the white board is the word gratitude.”

I wrote GRATITUDE on the board now and drew a circle around it.

“See? Gratitude is something I also feel…a lot. That you and me get another day together. That you did that adventure with Daddy on the weekend and walked all around Union station. That you get annoyed with your mother like every child should and point out the saliva hanging from my mouth when I yawn—just this morning in fact. That there was a hospital waiting to take care of you a million days if they had to. Makes me fluttery and grateful. Like whipped cream in the last seconds, when you’ve beaten it to its peak. That kind of fluttery. It’s also your breath. Your long arms reaching up and out of the water when you swim. Gratitude is watching you be inexplicably bored as I talk and talk and talk.”

“You are talking a lot,” you said.

“I know!” I said. “Now! Moving onto the middle of the Venn diagram!”

“There’s a middle?” you both groaned.

“Yes, the middle is the most exciting part. The middle of the Venn diagram is acceptance, which is comprised of both grief and gratitude. It’s also where SickKids comes in. SickKids is in the intersection of the Venn diagram in a way.”

“I drew a Venn diagram once,” you say matter-of-factly.

“Oh?”

“It was about things with wings.”

“Dr Marshall? Do you have a Venn diagram you would like to share?”

“No thank you,” she said. “But I do enjoy folding laundry.”

We paused to imagine Dr. Marshall folding laundry.

I considered getting us all Starbucks because that’s the natural order of things at the hospital. Drink chai lattes, eat egg sandwiches, cry then flutter.

I put my whiteboard back in my bag.

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In an exciting turn of events, my dear friend secured us tickets.

I think I’ll still hand write this though (as per the competition request!) and send it in.