I was lying on top of my bed, curled up on my side. Slow tears had grown into loud sobs that I pressed into my blanket to muffle my cries. I was upset because Spiderman wasn’t real. I was fifteen years old.
Yes. Fifteen is still a little old to be crying over fictional characters, I admit. To be fair, it wasn’t that I had thought he was real and learned he wasn’t. I wasn’t a total idiot. I was simply hyper focused on the fact that Spiderman didn’t exist. It didn’t seem fair. Violence was real. Murder was real. Rape was real. Kidnapping was real. So why wasn’t Spiderman?
…And then I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I felt a little older. A little wiser. A little sadder.
There was some point between weeping and sleeping when I had indirectly taught myself to accept what was and what wasn’t. To swallow the hard truths and go on with my life…without crying about it.
That lesson endured, and harsh realities came and went as I got older. I didn’t need to run to my bedroom and shut my door and cry myself to sleep. I could accept things as they were, and move on. I had many opportunities to practice this order of events as I transitioned from a girl to a woman. In fact, by the time I was twenty, I believed that I had mastered the exercise of acceptance along with other graces that indicated I was on the brink of maturity.
Fifteen years later, I would learn that wishing for fantastical people and/or things was not beyond me. Not in the slightest.
Here. I sit on a chair with just enough cushion to show there was an intention to comfort, but the chair is not comfortable. There is a lot within this room that falls short of their intention to comfort. In addition to the padded chair, there’s a picture on the wall of a national park with a dry climate, a window with a view of a low roof full of steaming vents and other large metal obstructions of which I couldn’t tell you their function, and then a teal curtain with white rings patterned up and down its length. All things that could possibly help one be more comforted… and it’s really not their fault that they aren’t able to fulfill their intention. It’s really the fault of the other things in the room.
For example, there’s a beep. The beep is a good sound, but if it ever changes it becomes a bad sound; the potential alone carries its own anxieties. There’s the smell of alcohol and disinfectant spray emanating from every surface, crawling up into my nostrils. There’s a laminated poster on the outside of the door to the bathroom titled, “Pain Management” and below are different sections with small text and simple illustrations of smiley faces that become more and more upset as they move further up on the scale of pain. I wonder how this all looks to my son as I hold him in my arms. He’s so young, will hospital rooms start to feel normal after our first week here?
And, of course, there are the tubes and wires that have become an extension of my husband’s body. The clear tubes from his nose. Oxygen. The tubes from his forearms. Hydration and Pain. The wires hooked up to the band around his arm and to his finger tip. Heart.
I remember we had been on a Star Trek kick a while back, and we watched the Borg attack the Enterprise once. The effects were, of course, dated, and the costume and makeup cheap looking. But the episode itself terrified both of us. We talked a lot that night about the unknown threats to the world and what being devoured and taken over like that would be like.
My husband looked like the Borg.
I’m rubbing my eyes even though I know it’s not good for them because it feels good. And there are not many things that feel good today. And a tear carrying salt from fifteen years ago travels from my eyes down my face.
It’s not Spiderman’s existence I’m longing for this evening. It’s a time machine. If I could just go back in time, only by just a few hours... I could change the events that put us in this room. And I wouldn’t have to change something big. If the time machine would only allow for an adjustment in seconds or inches, I could protect David. If I held him for a few seconds longer before he walked out the front door. Maybe an extra kiss goodbye. Maybe a longer, loving squeeze of the hand. Maybe a quick check to make sure he had his phone and wallet before he was off. Just a few seconds delayed. And then maybe we’d be home right now. Truly comfortable. Maybe we’d be watching Star Trek and eating snacks on the couch. Maybe he’d get up to refill my glass and walk across the living room into the kitchen, to the fridge…walking like it was nothing; both legs still intact.
The next day, I sit in front of my husband, still holding our son in my arms. I’m grateful to have our baby here, his warmth and weight comfort me in the corner of the space. The hospital’s physical therapist is helping you slowly carry your leg from its mountain of propped pillows down to the ground. Slowly. Gently.
In polite protest, I ask what is the meaning of all of this?
“What are the benefits of my husband moving so soon after surgery?”
Why are you doing this to him?
“Shouldn’t he be resting?”
He looks so pale.
“It hasn’t even been 24 hours since his surgery.”
The physical therapist is patient with me and explains that movement will help avoid blood clots.
So I sit still. Both of your feet are dangling from the bed, touching the floor. You aren’t looking at me, you’re looking out the window with no view. Just smoke and things from the ugly concrete roof. The physical therapist isn’t looking at me, they’re looking at the lack of color in your cheeks. And I hold my breath. I am thinking only of your physical body—your muscles, ligaments, bones—and their damage. I think, this will be too hard. And when I’m sure you cannot stand, you slowly lean forward, with your hands deep in the hospital bed, pressing down. Your movements are slow, but you stand, all weight on your left foot. You straighten your body, rolling your shoulders and spine up vertebra by vertebra. And I see your eyes shimmer and your lips shake. And I realize that it’s not your physical body that is being challenged here. It’s the things that make up your confidence, your courage, your focus, your hope: your mind. Your heart. They are what’s at battle now.
And I hear you gasp, and I hear you cry. And I think if there was a time machine, and it cost a billion dollars, I would somehow get a loan and buy it for you. We would get in together with our little boy, and I would turn the dial back to our simple, perfect, excellent, easy lives of walking the dogs, pouring cereal into porcelain bowls while standing over the kitchen counter, and showering together while we talked about what we needed at the grocery store the next day.
I try to read your face. You’re scared. Overwhelmed. Abandoned—Not by me, but by the oblivion of the dangers that come with life. That we’re all susceptible to. I felt it too, to a much smaller degree. The brutalities of life and chance had struck us suddenly, and now we were aware of how fragile life was, how fragile our bones and veins and skin were. We were now keenly aware that anywhere we were, at any time, we were exposed. We knew accidents happen everywhere to everyone all the time, but we didn’t feel it. Not until now.
While watching you muster up enough strength, courage, and determination to reach for a walker and stand, I can’t shake the feeling of anger I have for the lack of advancement in technology. I didn’t care about flying to Mars. I didn’t care about discovering new seaweeds in the unknown depths of the ocean through the most innovative submarine. I didn’t even care about the ability to call my grandmother through the airwaves using a cellular device. I would have taken all of the technology in the world and traded it in for one trip in a time machine.
It was strange to say how I felt. Too strange actually. When my family, friends, or simply the nurses that came and went in our room that week asked me how I was feeling, I never once told them, “Well, I’m angry because no one has been clever enough to come up with a time machine.” Instead I said, “Not good.” and left it at that. And so they left it as well.
My husband sat down after getting both hands on the walker for a few seconds. Then he returned to lying on the hospital bed with his leg elevated. The physical therapist left. I made the mistake of checking my phone where every response that came through only infuriated me more.
“Your husband’s accident has reminded me to live life to the fullest because you never know when something like this can happen. He’s inspired me to make the most of my life and go on a vacation!” Thanks Carol. I’ll let David know that his accident, pain and suffering, and inability to walk has helped you decide to take that trip to Mexico.
“At least he got to keep his leg.” Yes, Brittany. We’re oh so grateful.
“It could have been worse.” Well, Tom. It could have been better.
“I hope he’s okay.” You don’t have to hope. He’s not. He’s not, and I’m not.
“Sending happy and healing vibes.” Take those vibes and stick them up your ass.
“This happened for a reason.” Can’t wait to learn what it is.
“This is all part of God’s plan.” He’s a shitty planner.
Nothing that people told me made me feel better. To be fair, nothing then really made me feel better. (I accept those responses much more gracefully now that I’ve had more than a day to process, I promise.) But in those first 24 hours, it was only David that could make me feel remotely better. Only his improvements. Only his smiles. Only him.
But the “better” hurt too. When he smiled, my heart fluttered and ached. When he gave me a thumbs up, my eyes widened and watered. When he told me about a memory of us, I was glad we did the thing he recalled while simultaneously feeling bitter we could not do the thing now. When he stood up for the first time, I felt hopeful that he would walk again…and scared that he would fall. There was no joy, even from him, that didn’t come with its own shadowed lining.
And some of those nights were terrible. The medication stopped working. The drugs came too late. And David was in so much pain that he could not talk. He only made a strained constant grunt almost as if in a backwards “OM” through his grinding teeth. And he screamed and cried in between those strange hums he made. This was my husband, and he was hurting. And so in those times when he was moaning in pain so he could not hear me, I would hold his hand tightly so that he knew I was there. Those nights we cried together. There has never been a time I felt more helpless.
And we also shared tears on less eventful, but still terrible nights. When the results of the accident were sinking in. The many limits of what his body would allow were debilitating on their own. The pain of rehab was somehow both unimaginable and overwhelming. The timeline of recovery, daunting, taunting, and withering away any good spirits we could muster. I thought about how we used to dance in our living room which was big enough for exactly half a twirl. And I thought about how my husband would not be able to twirl me for months and maybe years. We cried together those nights too.
“Today was supposed to be my first day of school,” He said on the third day at the hospital. David made sure I reached out to his professors and advisor to explain why he didn’t show up. He didn’t want them to think he didn’t want to be there.
And in between those moments of highs and lows, joys and strains, when I was not distracted by a milestone or set back, I started to bargain with the hypothetical gods. Would I trade places with my husband if I could? I saw his leg, the pain, and felt embarrassed when I hesitated when confronted with the question. Who would I choose to endure the accident instead of my husband? Too many names popped into my head too quickly.
And when the hypotheticals stopped and I was left to my own devices while my husband slept…
I thought of time machines.
I sometimes imagined them to look like those retro refrigerators with their curved corners and round edges. Just one big door, three big buttons, and the whoosh of time being pulled and plied like taffy. I thought about the time machines I had seen in movies. There always has to be some line explaining why the main character isn’t going back to kill Hitler. You can’t have a lovable main character if they aren’t willing to kill Hitler. There always had to be some rule explained there.
One look at my husband and—terrible or not, please don’t judge me—I would have given up Hitler’s death in a second if I could take back that day for David. I feel shame saying it. But I can’t help how I feel tonight. I don’t want to change history, I just want to change last week. Would David hate me for thinking that? I rub my eyes. Would he hate me for not murdering Hitler at the chance? …Would that make me a bad mother?
I had read the book, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, many years ago. I had watched both movies too. It occurred to me that time machines always had a fun connotation when I thought of them previously. You know, you always get the question, “If you could travel to another time period, where would you go?” It’s basically like asking where you would go for your next vacation…But The Time Machine… that story gets it. Because the invention of the contraption is born from an accident. If I remember correctly, the inventor’s wife dies. Tragically, even after he gets the time machine to work, he can’t change history. His wife continues to die over and over in many, many ways as he continues to try to save her.
What is with that concept? That we can’t change history. That it either shouldn’t or couldn’t be changed—that’s always a rule in those kinds of stories. I thought about this while a technician helped my husband into the bathroom where he would take his first sitting shower. The sound of the plastic garbage bag taped around his thigh being dragged across the floor played like static in my ears, or rather, sounded like our baby’s sound machine we used at home. I wasn’t sure if I should look at him for support or away for privacy. Or was it dignity?
What if David’s accident couldn’t be changed? Or at least the damage. What if no matter what I tried—given I was able to travel back in time—he still came out unable to walk for an indefinite amount of time. What if it had to be so? And if so, what if there was a purpose?
What if David not walking was actually the lesser of two evils? What if God’s plan was actually, somehow, merciful? As I hear the water splash against my husband’s back, I wonder why I can’t just be grateful he’s alive. Why can’t I stop with the time machine nonsense and just be happy he’s okay?
Now David is showered, his pain under control. He’s in bed. His oxygen levels are high, and his heart rate normal. He’s exhausted from standing, from showering, from breathing. And as I watch his chest rise and fall, listening to the constant beep of the heart monitor, I wonder…Would the time machine have a dial on the dashboard to direct it to the right time or would it be something more like a lever or a stick shift?