Monday, July 26, 2010

How to tell if a child....

LittleMan constantly challenges himself with dare-devil jumping tricks, and sometimes he gets hurt.  Today my brother and his wife took the kids to their neighbor's son's 5th birthday party.  They returned LittleMan with a black and blue bruise on his right cheek bone.  He had jumped off a swivel chair that projected him into a wooden coffee table. Ouch!
I gave him some Arnica, but started getting worried he suffered a concussion since he seemed overly calm and tired at home.  Meaning that he was just sitting on the sofa... he NEVER just sits.  He fell asleep on the sofa so I'm hoping that he is just tuckered out from the party.  I started to google "how to tell if a child has a concussion" when google auto-populated mid sentence with some striking searches.  See the screen shot:
The emotions loaded in each of these searches stopped me in my tracks.  I can feel the hopes, the fears, the concern and uncertainty of the parents as they type.  I went through each line and put myself in the place of that parent.  I think that Google puts them in order of most-searched up at the top.  So imagine how many parents are out there thinking that their little one is so special, more special than other kids.  That's awesome and dually pretentiously rotten.
What is disturbing is how many abused and molested varieties of searches there are on the list.  We live in a sad and demented world.
There are two psychological disorder questions, autism and ADHD, their presence on the list confirming their rise in prevalence in our country.
The last one on the list jolted me.  I know that probably there are a bunch of men out there in wacky relationships, doubting the word of their girlfriend or that chick they hooked up with.  But my mind went to the faithful father, who stood by his lover/girlfriend/wife through the pregnancy and birth.  Now the kid is growing up and he just feels that something isn't completely right.  He hesitantly types the words into the search box, almost afraid of what will pop up in return.
As impersonal as it is to pass like ships on the dark webbed sea, it feels almost like violating privacy to reach this level of intimacy with the parents who posed those searches.  
There are so many stories packed in that search box.  By stumbling on it I feel like I crossed paths with strangers, sharing the road for a moment; like driving next to someone on the highway and glancing at their car.  I'll never know where they are going or what is their destiny.  But I get a glimpse into a moment of life, a second of thoughts, a gigabyte electronic connection from node to node.  Wherever you are out there, we are all searching under the same fair white screen, all searching for something.  From one parent to another, I hope you find what you need.

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