Maybe a Camera Isn't the Only Thing I'm Losing

I sometimes think my degree of angst about any particular event is in direct inverse proportion to the actual cosmic impact of the event.

Take, for example, the year that Boy#3 born on Jan. 2. He had a rocky start, with hospitalizations when he was 17 days old and seven weeks old. (I had never even heard of RSV before then.) I spent more nights than I can count sitting up with him and counting his breaths, watching his retractions and wondering if I should be bundling him up for a trip to the emergency room. In the midst of this, two-year-old Boy#2 decided breathing difficulties looked like a whole lot of fun and kicked into a full-blown asthma attack, resulting in a five-day hospital stay.

During these crises I was a rock. Those babies got round-the-clock care as I measured out medicines and waved nebulizer mist under their noses. The doctor's office was on speed dial (back when that was a big deal) and I knew exactly where all the publicly-accessible electrical outlets were on the 60-mile trip between home and the hospital--just in case I didn't think the gasping child would make it a whole hour between breathing treatments.

Finally both were on the mend. Two and Three had been dismissed by our fabulous pediatrician, and spring was in the air, so I decided to get out of the house by myself for the first time in months. I left the boys with our favorite babysitter and went out to buy a vacuum cleaner.

When I got home, dear E. was standing at the door, holding a wailing Boy#2. He had tripped on the carpet as he ran across the floor, falling face-first into our shoe-holding crock. He'd broken off his top two teeth. We took him to the dentist, who told us there was no permanent damage and we'd just need to wait for the stumps to fall out as part of the normal baby-to-permanent-teeth progression.

Friends, I came un. glued. I had been a calm and efficient nurse/mom during the multiple issues that could have KILLED my babies. And now, with the loss of these two baby teetn, I was a basket case. I cried. I sobbed. I could not even look at Two's beautiful face, all swollen and black-eyed and front-toothless.

This long story is to say that I was fully aware that yesterday's Ode to a Camera was all out of proportion to the anguish that should be felt about the loss of a thing, any thing, even the Velveteen Rabbit of cameras. (Thanks, Boy#1, for that exact description of how I felt about my camera. Also for the illustration he found, and which I include below.)

This spring has had some jangly emotions, though. Between some extended family stuff (not bad but jangly), some work stuff (also not bad but jangly), and Pepper's health scare, my surface has been coping but apparently my psyche has been...jangled. All of that angst burst out when the camera went missing.

And this morning, when I found it in the sewing room where I had been documenting the absolute disaster that had been my attempt to create something crafty, my joy was correspondingly out of proportion to the importance of the find. I wanted to call all my friends and kill the fatted calf.

The lost has been found.