The first time I remember becoming aware that our bodies aren’t invincible is the moment my dad said “stitches” while holding his blood-stained white t-shirt to the busted open head of my beloved brother. I didn’t jump off my bike in lieu of using the brakes. I wasn’t physically injured. I wasn’t going to the E.R. as a patient. But when I realized that my unflappable father couldn’t handle this injury himself, and that my extremely tidy mother considered this enough of an emergency to grab a clean dishtowel to stem the bleeding
, and that some doctor was going to sew up my brother’s five year-old head, I lost it. Hysterical screaming lost it. Taking all the attention away from the hurt child lost it. Can’t stop yourself even though you’re acting like a crazy person lost it. The sudden sure knowledge the bodies I loved could be gravely wounded made an impression still visceral today. I sat in the waiting room, randomly clutching a plastic mouse from the "Mousetrap" game like a talisman, waiting for news. It was not serious--just a few stitches with no residual effects other than a tiny scar--but the world changed for me in that moment of vulnerability. In Tedd Arnold’s Parts, the main character is a little boy who doesn’t understand baby teeth are supposed to fall out and belly button lint isn’t your stuffing leaking. All he knows is that if bodies don’t get tended to, bad things happen. Tell me about it.http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00002322.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/Parts-Tedd-Arnold/dp/0803720408
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