Some Weeks Are Hard

Weeks of sick are hard.  Days blur.  Bodies filled with limitless energy, lie still.  Growing boys, changing day by day, reflect their younger selves as they lay with stillness.  Loud boy voices subdued with no energy left to squander.  Each boy has his turn with tears and moans and pleas to make it stop.  Night time rest disrupted to tend to ailments suffered.


Hours disappear in the busyness of tending each need in the makeshift sickroom that was once our living room.  Favourite blankets line the couches and chairs making cozy where little bodies nestle.  The television plays movies and shows chosen to whisk sick boys from the misery they feel to worlds where all is right.  Tired eyes heavy with weariness watch the screen

 without reaction.  Sleep claims still bodies.

Mommy moves between them: rubbing backs, touching hollow cheeks, kissing hot foreheads.  Sippy cups with straws are pulled from the back of the cupboard, refilled as soon as it's empty, encouraging parched lips to receive another sip.  Light foods are offered to empty tummies refusing any nourishment.

Some days one or two children venture to school.  The bus rolls up for just so few feet to wearily climb its stairs.  The tired boys returns at the close of the school day, exhausted from energy burned before bodies are fully restored to that of the days before the sickness started.  Back to the days when life was normal.  Normal seems so long ago.

Slowly, day-by-day,  boys become more active.  Tummies stop rebelling.  Throbbing heads clear.  All boys sleep the night through, feeling as they should and resting deeply.

Until finally, a week after it all began, the living room is again filled with log houses and trucks, not blankets covering still bodies.  Boys yelling and playing drown out thoughts, not the television.  Fights break out as they work out different ideas, not cries from feeling awful.  Life is back to normal.