<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/89905760_704098eea1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-281" title="89905760_704098eea1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/89905760_704098eea1.jpg" alt="" width="469" height="352" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/sallypics/">My aim is true</a></h5>
<strong>Today I got the emotional wind knocked out of me.</strong>

My daughter was the one in real pain, but she's OK now, and I'm the one still feeling shaky eight hours later. Welcome to parenthood, eh?

Here's essentially what happened. After lunch, I missed a call from my daughters’ school. When I saw it, my first thought was that one of the girls was feeling sick and needed to be picked up. My reaction? Mild annoyance. Oh, and a big sigh. My afternoon of work wouldn’t be as productive as I had hoped. I might even have to reschedule a conference call with a client.

When I listened to the message, though, I felt a stab of fear. “This is Julie at the school. Call the office immediately.â€ Not “this is Julie, your daughter just threw up,â€ or “this is Julie, your daughter is complaining of a headache.â€ Simply "call now."

As I was dialing the school, my daughters’ dad was calling me. Q, our fifth grader, had an “accidentâ€ during gym class, he told me. She had somehow tripped and flown headlong into a brick wall. They were worried she might have a broken nose, and possibly a concussion.

At this point, I was very concerned, but still calm. <strong>It was five minutes later, the moment that I saw Q, that I felt a surreal rush of adrenaline coursing through me, like I had just been injected with a frighteningly powerful drug.</strong> The rush was followed by a light-headed, sensation, as if I had forgotten how to breathe.

Q's face was covered in blood running from her nose, which was certainly dramatic. But even worse was the state of her forehead when I moved the ice pack. A lime-sized swelling had transformed the sweet, usually concave curve that swoops between her eyebrows down the bridge of her nose, into a convex, puffy mass with oddly defined edges. My own vision swayed and blurred, as I worked to suck oxygen to my lungs and remain calm.

This was my baby. Suddenly everything else I had known seemed unknown.

<strong>I don't want to be overly dramatic about this experience, so I'll cut quickly to the happy ending. </strong>

Less than an hour later, we were sitting with a doctor who was showing us the X-rays of Q’s skull, explaining there didn’t seem to be a serious nose break or a concussion. By the time we were home, Q’s swelling was noticeably reduced, and she was in fairly good spirits.

I was completely drained, so we shared the sofa. Her head was on a pillow at one end, mine was at the other, the afghan my mom crocheted covered both of us, and the gentle pressure of Q’s feet tucked between my body and the sofa’s back reminded me where we were: safe.
<h4>What should we do with life's scary moments?</h4>
I’m still trying to process the experience. It happened so quickly—one moment I was on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter">Twitter</a> posting about Jason's leftover chicken mole enchiladas that were calling my name from the fridge, and my very next tweet was sent from the backseat of the car, on our way to the hospital: <em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">my daughter had a head injury. going for x rays. please pray. </span></span></em>

It was over quickly, too, and Q is OK. <strong>But something significant still happened today. To happily breathe a sigh of relief, shrug it off and go along my way would be wrong and disrespectful of fear, somehow.</strong> Besides that, I still don't feel like myself. Clearly my psyche went through some sort of boot camp today, and I need to listen and respect it.

<strong>So, a few random thoughts that maybe I can better parse and examine at a later date:</strong>

<strong>- Relationships become crystal clear in times of stress.</strong> In the midst of my fear, I felt at once connected to and very distant from my ex-husband, Q's dad. We dealt with the problem together, love Q with the same ferocity, but can only support one another in a very superficial way. Being with him in that moment made me feel grateful and alone. It strikes me that we learn a lot about our relationship to someone in these high-stress moments. I haven't had a chance to really examine our relationship since we divorced and smoothed things over. All I can really say in conclusion about that is "Huh. Interesting."

<strong>- My Twitter community is real.</strong> On the way to the hospital, when I posted my quick tweet on Twitter asking people to pray for us, it was a comforting thing to be able to do. I was in the midst of a moment when I could do little more than comfort my daughter, all the while feeling united but distant from my ex. It felt really good to get the word out, and to know people were caring and praying. As a result, more than 20 people on Twitter—all but four of them people I’ve never met in person—responded with support, concern, and messages that they were praying. I didn’t see them until we were back safely at home, but I felt much less alone that whole scary time.

<strong>- My online and in-person communities are both important, in different ways.</strong> Once we were safely back home and Q was resting, I tweeted this update:<em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">once again, Twitter is an amazing, supportive, community. so many well wishes for my daughter, helping me feel less worried &amp; alone. thanks!</span></span></em>

@JebDickerson, who's responsible for the blog  <a href="http://www.howtomatter.com/">How To Matter</a>, responded with this:<em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">glad to hear all is well kt. how does the support provided by online 'friends' compare to that of the ppl around you, in person?</span></span></em>

It's a really interesting question, particularly in light of all of the thinking I’ve been doing about community and friendships, on- and off-line. I've sort of come to the conclusion that my on-line community is immediate, accessible, and coordinated in a way that uniquely meets sudden needs. But I also know that, had Q's situation been worse, and she was admitted to the hospital, our local community would have been there in an instant, doing anything and everything to take care of our family's needs.

<strong>- Finally, I'm going to get cheesy (and perhaps a bit obvious): All that we chase after in this world is nothing when put up next to the people you love most.</strong> Although it’s scary, it’s good to be put in a place where you can more clearly see all that you have, and all that you love, and all that really matters, even when so much in the world seems so wrong.

As a parent, feeling that stabbing fear at my heart, which is near to bursting with love for my child, is a sensation I'll probably never forget. My understanding of life and love has been recalibrated, and I’m so grateful.