Mother at Work

     It’s easy overtime money in the fire department to work for an officer who will be out training for the day. You work a little, run a few calls, get to leave around 5pm.  Home for dinner!  Sure, I’ll work for Captain Thomas, his crew is cool, low key, no problems.

     I had worked for him a few times and nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. His guys were smart and pleasant. They were happy to tell stories about calls they had run, fishing, hunting, NASCAR and lots of topics I found boring. The plan: eat lunch, run a couple calls, the Captain would be back and I would leave.

     Soon after shift change we were punched out to a nearby trailer park for a toddler in full arrest. Shit! We got a worker!  This is going to suck and we got to get there quick.  Lieutenant Kahlson, in command, front seat of the engine.  Being the officer for another shift is an audition during unpredictable chaos.  The crew watches how you handle your calls differently than their regular officer.  I could immediately feel the crews’ relief at not being in charge for this call.

     Our fire engine and ambulance were on the road in lightning speed. Lights and sirens blaring, plowing down the road, demanding a clear path by broadcast call of the air horn. “Get the fuck out of our way!”  Heading to a call like this is fraught with difficult options. The crew is uncomfortable.  Everyone is rehearsing their roles. What equipment to grab.  Who will do what?  Who will be the lead on patient care?  Who will handle the family?  It has to be seamless, no stumbles.  I hoped the cops would get there first. When the cops make a clear path for us we get to wear blinders to the storms of emotion.  We get to work!  Inevitably, the child is either dead, or close to it and the mother is out of her mind.  She desperately hopes you will fix whatever is wrong and hand the child back.  We traversed our way through the trailer park with measured speed, the speed bumps making time stand still then lunge forward again.  Holding us up in a way that feels so unfair. When we arrived at the trailer, the driver set the air break, announcing our arrival.  I threw open my door, jumped out, barely touching the fold out stairs, and headed straight for the trailer.  I was met with an open door. That’s odd, no family member in a tizzy, nervously guiding me to a child?  Or no one standing out front, waiting to pass the child to the first sign of help?  The trailer was dark and sparsely furnished. Had the electricity had been cut off?   Either way it’s a dismal backdrop.  Walking into the darkness I saw a young woman across the room kneeling on the carpeted floor at the edge of the living room/kitchen border.  She was in her twenties, thin, wearing tight  jeans and a tee shirt.  Long stringy wet hair blanketed her back and shoulders and spilled forward as she moved. She looked up at me, lost, hopeful, vacant, rocking her child back and forth.  “He won’t respond to me, he won’t respond.”  I approached carefully, wishing  I was somewhere else, anywhere else but this dark, empty, hollow trailer.  I held out my arms, tilted my head and with a soft, confident, convincing voice, “can I have him?  Will you give him to me?”  She rose to her her feet, holding him close like a trusted pillow. Reluctantly, she surrendered his fate to me, putting his lifeless body in my arms. I turned to leave, almost crashing into the paramedic on my crew, he blurted out “I’ll take him, if you have her.”  I didn’t want to let the boy go. I’m a mother! I can’t just let him go.  That’s not what mothers do!  Oh, I’m a firefighter, that’s right, he’s a paramedic.  I handed over the limp toddler, they disappeared into the back of the idling ambulance.

     The mother went to follow, like a zombie staggering through a horror movie. They just know the way. I hastened her calling by asking lots of questions.  “Was he sick? When did you last see him conscious? Does he have a medical history? Does he take medication?”  I had to stop her, she couldn’t go to him while they were working. I had to protect my crew from the only real obstacle, her.  The force of a desperate mother. Who knows what she would do?  Unleashing her would be like triggering a tidal wave.  We made our way outside as I desperately tried to slow her from getting to my crew. She can’t go in there!  She can’t see this.  If I were her, I would want to be in the way, I’d want my baby.  She answered me as best she could. We stopped and stood together in the street, halted with nowhere to turn.  I reached with my mother arms, the arms that had hugged my own children.   She accepted my invitation, it was me or no one.  I folded my arms tightly around her body holding her head up against my heart.  I would not let her go and she would not resist.  She screamed into my chest with a force I thought would bring me to my knees. She sobbed and drooled, she shook and buried her mouth into my skin. Her grief and panic was deafening and went through every cell of my body, it had no where else to go.  My uniform and skin were soaked from her long wet hair, her endless spit and the blood from her baby’s mouth. My legs vibrated so rigorously I wondered if I could continue to hold us both up.  I couldn’t fail, there was nowhere else to go, I could leave no room between us.  I stroked her hair and repeated, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”   I could not tell her it was going to be ok. That would be a lie.  She could not lose her son and also be told lies.  I thought of my children, I knew they were alive and healthy, safe, in a clean home with electricity and comfort.  I was not howling in agony, in a stranger’s arms at the thought of my child being dead. I was not wondering how I could ever be whole again. How could I be me?  And she be her?  How is this fair?

     Looking up over my shoulder I caught the faces of my crew, my team, my back up, my guys, peering out the rear of the ambulance.  They were not “working” a full arrest. They were glued to me, mesmerized, they must have been relieved to be behind the ambulance doors and not in the street. No one attempted to take my place, to step in.  No one interrupted or said they could do this better or offered to give me a break.  I felt stranded and grounded as a mother showing up to an early morning nightmare, riding in on a fire engine.

     I asked the man across the street, watching something terrible unfold from his front porch, “Hey, can we borrow your trailer?”  I had to get her off the street, away from the eyes of the curious, expanding crowd, into a manageable space.  He answered quickly, “Sure.”  I walked her in front of me into a trailer that completely contrasted hers.  It was bright and tidy, safe and welcoming.  She collapsed on the sofa at the far end of the room, looking at me in disbelief.  I’ll give her a job!   “Do you have a mother you are in touch with?” She nodded yes. “You should call her now.  How about a girlfriend?  Get someone here you trust.”  She complied, crying through hurried phone calls.

In walked the police officer, finally! I briefed her on what had happened. Unfortunately for her, she walked into a den of loss with lots of catching up to do.  I melted away, retreating into the street and to the ambulance which housed my crew. Standing in the stairwell of the patient compartment, I pulled the door shut.  My crew and another police officer sat quietly, staring at this beautiful blond haired boy, supine on the stretcher with his arms and legs resting at his side. Just how he had landed when they placed him there.  How an exhausted child would look after he had fallen asleep in his car seat and been carefully taken to bed. His lips were blue, his skin pale gray.  His mouth was painted with scant stokes of dried blood.  I imagined him laughing, teasing, silly, innocent.  Always exploring, making his mother bright, joyful and in perpetual motion. The medic held a cellphone connected to the Medical Examiner. He nodded, he answered, he delivered detailed report, like information. Cold, cut and dry answers, no room for fluff or emotion, let’s just get this over with.  Was this it?  Everything was still and frozen in space, nothing was happening.  We are fixing nothing.  I had delivered them a lost cause. No opportunities to tell anyone “we did everything we could.” There was no work to be done, just gathering details to support an investigation. We waited.

     Tap, tap, tap…I turned to the window of the medic door.  My face within a foot of the glass. The morning light is warm and bright. Geez! Who wants in here now? From outside, looking up at me was mom.  Her face red and worn, swollen from tears, her hair half dry and tight. Her mouth formed words, no sound, “I want my baby, I want my baby back…please, please, can I have my baby back?”

     I knew I had taken her baby and I knew she would never hold him again.  She would never rock him or sooth his cries.  A mother wants to hold her dead baby if the only other choice is holding no baby at all. He must be in her arms if she is going to say goodbye.  When will she say goodbye?  I have him and you don’t.  I slowly reached up, looking into her trusting eyes and locked the door. CLICK.  I would not be holding her again, absorbing her tears or enduring her screams, we were done. I looked to the police officer. “She’s asking me for her baby, what should I do?”  With seemingly fewer ideas than me, he looked to the floor and shook his head,  “I don’t know.”  After a deep breath and a look at the dead boy, he climbed down from the back of the ambulance. I peeked out the window as the police officer led mom away, looking back at me, pleading for me to change my mind.