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The Love in Our Feet

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Contributed by: Monica Newton on 8/7/2008

This story was written after my daughter fell down the gravelly mountain side of the large hill out at Jaycee Park on April 9, 2005.

"Mommy, touch my feet like you did at the hospital," requested my daughter as we sat watching television. I reached over and rubbed them a moment.

"No, Mommy, like before."

"How was that, Sweetie?"

"With all your love going from your heart to your hands to my feet to my heart."

I couldn't help but smile and tear up at the same time. I knew exactly what she meant. Last Saturday her fragile body was so bruised and bloodied and she was in such pain as the nurses worked to clean her wounds that there was only one place I could touch her; her feet.

It's been a turbulent week with her. I've bitten my tongue many a time and turned to prayer. A friend overheard one of her episodes as we talked on the phone and said he could hear the whining in her voice but could understand it under the circumstances. With children of his own, he knew the hard spot I was in-discipline versus sympathy.

She's rounding the bend now, I think. As I drive by that mountain of gravel and dirt that stands 83 feet high at the moment, I shudder when I realize how she could have so easily been hurt even more. Having not paid much attention to it in the past, it seems to reach out and mock me every morning now.

I remember how the doctor looked at me with amazement. He had spent several minutes cautiously assessing every part of her body, asking her to turn her head, gently poking, prodding and moving limbs, thoroughly checking her abdomen and back.

"I think we got really lucky here. I don't believe she has any broken bones or internal injuries." I let out the breath of fear I had been holding and started crying.

It took several hours of observation, cleaning the wounds and a tetanus shot before she was released. Layers of skin were scraped off both shoulders, her arms and her left leg. She's bandaged from her neck to below her knee and looks like she's been in an accident or hit by a bus. Humor came out in fear and the official story is she took on a mountain and lost.

She won, though. Witnesses said she stumbled and then seemed to just gracefully somersault down. Cheerleading experience? No. I'm convinced that God got her safely through what could have been a lot worse.

If you ask my daughter, she'll tell you it would have been nice if the gravel hadn't been there on the way down. Plus, she lost her favorite pair of jeans because they had to cut her clothes off of her. She did think it was cool to get to keep the hospital gown.

As I rub her feet, I remember how just a couple of days earlier she was feeling the opposite emotion towards me. Quite literally, with tears running down her cheeks and no humor in sight, she looked me in the eyes and screamed, "I hate you!"

That day I had to completely change all bandages. The pain was intense, no teenage dramatics involved. The begging and pleading tore me up. The words above broke my heart.

I was trying to do everything possible to keep the scarring to a minimum for this beautiful young lady. I was trying to keep infection from setting in. I was trying to take the pain away only to have my daughter view me as the cause of more pain.

She was in tears and didn't want me anywhere near her. The pain was so bad I left her with her grandmother and took a break so she wouldn't have to look at me. She later text-messaged me and said she was sorry. I rushed home.

Today, though, that seems to be forgotten as she lays on the couch and sighs with contentment. Once again I give thanks to God for keeping her from further harm.

And for the love going from my heart to my hands to my child's feet to her heart.

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