JOYRIDE III

I remember my first encounter with blaring sirens. I was 5 years old and learned why you shouldn’t run with glass. I was attempting to quickly transport a bottle of ginger ale (back when soda bottles were made out of glass) to an elderly neighbor a few doors away when I fell and made my first trip to the emergency room. There would be many more.
I felt a mix of excitement and terror as I was rapidly deployed to the hospital in the back of a Philadelphia police car. My mom sat next to me holding a cloth on my head, trying to keep us both calm. My 7-year-old son Josh made a similar trip recently, but in the back of an ambulance.
I was riding bikes with Josh and my 9-year-old son Kameron. For once, there was no horseplay and everyone was listening. Kameron led our single-file line of two-wheelers with me in the middle and Josh in the back.
We were on our way to pickup my 4-year-old twins from a local camp when I heard it. It’s the sound that every parent dreads: the panicked screaming that comes from pain and fright, not because they’re looking for attention.
It was one of those times where you remember how helpless and little your children still are. I could see the blood pouring out of Josh’s mouth as he ran toward me, screaming.
In true small town style, we were just three blocks from the fire station. A friend happened by and gave Josh a ride in her car, as Kameron biked and I ran behind them.
After 3 seconds of examination, a paramedic looked at me and said, “Yep, he’s going to need stitches.” I called my wife on my cell phone to ask her to pick up our twins as Kameron expressed concern about where he could park his bike. He liked the answer and I could tell he was thinking, “Wow, I get to park my bike in the fire station.”
As a paramedic asked me about my hospital preference, it dawned on me. I hadn’t thought about the ambulance part until now. Sirens wailing, this was real drama, not the trumped up version I usually see from the kids. Seeing Josh strapped on the back of a gurney suddenly I was scared.
Of course, I knew he would be fine. But the visual is so stark for a parent. Your child whooshed at semi-high speed in an ambulance through small town streets. Unlike my growing up in Cape May, where this episode would have meant a trip all the way to Cape May Court House, the hospital was just 2 miles away.
The ER staff was kind and did their best to make Josh feel at ease and complimented his bravery. But facades only go so far in a place full of needles and cold metal instruments. As they examined his chin and tongue, Josh tried to remain calm. But then came the tears.
The nurse tried to give him a penicillin tablet. Another intrusion from the adult world. Every bit of medication Josh had ever taken in his life had been in liquid form with bubble gum flavor.
Sewn up with stitches in his tongue and chin, time then stopped. Josh and I were set there to wait. Two hours of stillness to be sure there was no lingering effects.
We sat on the edge of one of those ingloriously uncomfortable hospital beds watching a tiny TV that didn’t seem to get any kids’ channels. Josh chose a generic family sitcom and there we watched in a kind of comatose haze. It was almost an hour before I realized I was still wearing my bike helmet.
ER visits are a part of childhood. They’re inevitable. They’re a rite of passage for almost all children. It momentarily transports them into the adult world. They realize that life is more fragile than they thought, not just for grownups, but for them too. A little of their innocence dies at these moments. But the scars that form are a remembrance of childhood. Because when we are grownups, the stories our scars tell are full of revelry and nostalgia, and maybe some embellishment.
Keith Forrest is a tenured assistant professor of communication at Atlantic Cape Community College. His late mother Libby Demp Forrest Moore wrote the Joyride column for this newspaper for 20 years.