Went to my son’s Christmas concert the other night. Our eleventh at this little school in so many years. Sometimes it’s a full-blown concert; sometimes it’s just an all-school sing-a-long. But hearing all those little voices singing in the darkened but festive gym always tugs at my heartstrings, as it brings to mind the Christmastime I spent with my toddler son in the old, dingy MSA Hospital pediatric ward.
It was December 13, 2004, and for the fourth time in three months, we had presented ourselves at the emergency ward because our 18-month-old toddler was struggling to breathe due to yet another asthma attack. Once again we were rushed to MSA from Chilliwack by ambulance, and brought into the subdued darkened hallways of the creepy night-time pediatric ward.
I was taking an unwelcome crash course in resilience, forced as all mothers are to be there for my child through adverse times. By now, after spending Halloween and our high school reunion weekend in hospital with Miles, Daryl and I were getting somewhat despondent, wondering if these frequent hospitalizations would ever end (they did).
It was well into night-time when we entered the dark ward, and I once again tried to settle my son, who refused the ‘baby jail’ crib with metal bars and insisted on sleeping on top of me on the single narrow cot. I didn’t see the other mothers, but I heard them: each singing a soothing song to her child, and all in the language of their homeland. I can’t recall all their ethnicities any more, just that the universal mother’s lullaby was being sung in several different tongues.
This time Miles was also diagnosed with RSV virus, which meant we were quarantined in a four-bed ward with other sick little ones, unable to stroll the hallways or check out the common room. Miles was once again tethered at the nose to oxygen by a long cord that gave him a bit of mobility, and his striped hospital pajama sleeves were taped shut to prevent him from tearing the cords out.
The next morning, two of the mother-child pairs left, leaving Miles and I alone with our kitty-corner neighbours, a young mother who was a recent immigrant from India, incarcerated in the ped ward with her four-month old son. At first we ignored each other behind the curtains, each focused on the care of her own sick little boy. But boredom and proximity drew us together as the hours and days passed by, and eventually she started to pepper me with questions about baby care, fitness, and Canadian culture.
It was a nice bonding experience as we talked each other through our confinement. The most comical part of this was teaching her Jingle Bells and trying to explain the lyrics to her. She’d heard me singing it to Miles and really wanted to know what it was all about.
And I found myself having to analyze the word to a song that we all sing without a thought at this time of year. “Dashing – it’s kind of like running. A sleigh – you get pulled on it... through the snow… by a horse… well, I’ve never actually been in a one-horse open sleigh, but it sounds fun. Bells on bobtail ring… well, you put these bells on the horse’s tail… I guess you bob the tail first. Bobbing, it’s kind of like a haircut… anyway, the bells ring, that’s why they sing Jingle Bells!”
Through our cross-cultural communion we got each other through the boredom and despair of quarantine at Christmastime.
Later that day Miles was sprung from baby jail again, feeling much better. That night we attended his sister’s school Christmas sing-along at the same school he goes to now. The suddenly robust toddler ran around the perimeter of the darkened gym with his little friend Megan, and I was relieved to be a million miles away from the dark hospital ward as we all enthusiastically belted out Jingle Bells together -- a song I’ve never been able to hear since without being taken back to the pediatric ward at Christmastime.
