I Did It

I stood on a stage in front of 700 people and told the story of Elias's birth through a story frame of dipnetting for salmon on the Kenai.

I'll share the recording when its posted, in the meantime, below is essentially the story I shared at Arctic Entries. (Longtime readers will recognize parts of it from former blog posts):

 

I stand here at the mouth of the Kenai River, hands clasped around my pole, with nothing but an empty net and a hope for a fish to find it.

I wait alongside thousands of other Alaska residents for a sockeye salmon to find my net. Not the net inches from mine. Not the net at the front of the line. But mine. I want to be the chosen one.

I silently talk to the fish. Please, please find my net.

I talk to the people around me, as diverse as they come, all of us united by fish. When a fellow dipnetter loses a fish at the shore, and stands there shaking his head at the empty net, I feel the guy’s pain. I’ve been there before.

Haven’t we all lost something we wanted, arrived empty-handed, heart shattered, when we expected to be full? When tragedy calls my name I deny or blame or try to rewind time like Superman saving Lois Lane. When it happens to others I question their decisions or label them as a smokescreen to keep me safe. Like the way people give me false praise for raising a child with special needs. God must have chosen you to be his Mom. You are so good, so strong, so brave …

Because if there is something special about me, then maybe it couldn't happen to them. But it could happen to anyone. Chance. Luck. The fish that swims past a thousand nets, and gets caught in mine.

I lick the salt from my lips, remnants of waves far bigger than me, waves that crest and break when I can’t escape. I can’t feel my fingers, my arms ache, my bladder’s as full as my stomach’s empty, but I stand chest high in the fifty degree water for hours, waiting for that first salmon, for the rush of a fish swimming full tilt into the net I hold.

As I scan the row of anglers, it appears we are all just waiting…

What if we didn’t have to wait, that night,  in the emergency room? The night my water broke four full months too soon.  Nick and I alone in a room waiting to be seen. This can’t be happening, its not time. Please stay in, please, not now. Not us. Please…

When a nurse finally checked me she saw my baby’s foot and couldn’t hear his heart and that’s when everything moved too quickly. I remember my husbands eyes as they wheeled me away for an emergency c-section. The fear in me practically bouncing my legs off the gurney.  I wanted nothing more than to rewind: Back to my bed, Nick asleep by my side, baby boy safe inside—rewind.

I woke up in a surgery recovery room with an unfamiliar doctor by my side:

“Where’s my baby?” I asked.

She told me he was in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

“Is he Ok?”

Her dark brown eyes looked into mine and she said: “He’s alive—but I can’t tell you he’s going to survive.”

It wasn’t till I saw Nick’s face that I realized alive didn’t mean OK.

Our son Elias, our first child, arrived with an Apgar score of zero. No Movement. No heartbeat. No breath. At five minutes, still zero. Our one pound baby died and the doctors and nurses brought him back to life. I couldn’t hold him for the first two weeks, so I planted my feet by his side, my hands on his isolette, I stood there and I waited. We spent 94 days in that NICU and despite dire predictions Elias survived.

Years later, he holds himself upright with the help of forearm crutches, which he uses to poke a salmon carcass on the beach. “Mom, how do I un-dead the fish?"

How do I go back in time? How do I get a second try?  What if we didn’t have to wait so long? What if my cervix hadn’t opened? What if I’d been more cautious? What if…

I look back at my son on the beach and say, “Oh Bud, you can’t."

"When I'm bigger, I can go out there. I can fish too.”

“Yes, yes you can.”

And I mean it, I know we’ll find a way for Elias to dipnet someday; though, I must say, I love this time in the water, without my kids, I love the physical work of holding the net against the tides, the beauty of the light on the ocean, the volcanoes in the distance, the simplicity of my role: Hold the pole. Harvest fish. So different from parenthood.

People often say to me: I don’t know how you do it. What they mean is how you parent a child with so many needs. Elias’s short list includes visual impairment, cerebral palsy, and autism.  I don’t know how you do it?  What is the alternative? To not? Sorry god we said we didn’t care if it was a boy or girl, as long as it was healthy, you can take him back.

 
I plant my feet in the sand, hold tight to my net, stand in the water and wait.

The woman next to me catches one and I can’t help but wonder, out of the thousands of nets waiting, why hers? I mean is it fate or timing or equipment or skill?

I think it’s chaos theory. I think everything doesn’t happen for a reason. It’s random and luck and just being in the right place at the right time. We can look to our skills or our tools as factors in our bounty, but we can't isolate the cause.

Just as I can’t claim there’s something special about me for parenting a child like Elias, a child with an injured brain and miles between stones. I parent Elias by following his needs, winging it, and I’m always wondering if I’m doing it right.

The strength comes from loving him, not from some innate goodness in my soul.

I am not a chosen one, just randomly selected.

A salmon hits and I yank and flip my net with everything I got.  Please stay in, please…

When I finally land the sockeye I do a little dance around the net. Thank you. I lay my hands on the silver scales and study this first fish of the season longer than normal after waiting so long. Thank you, I tell the salmon with each strike, thank you. I raise it high above my head, as as both an offering and a prayer, for my loved ones who watch from our camp above. “Yay Mom,” I hear Elias say as he claps his hands together, the way that he does, in his standing ovation of one.

I bow to my boy, then I turn back towards the water, pick up my pole, and wield my giant net like a direct line between family and sea, luck and will, sustenance and soul, and as I face the oncoming waves, I think, one more, just one more…

Comments

[Mom and Dad]

So proud of you!!

[Jorene Doria]

Wonderful writing. Those who have experienced the controlled chaos of family dip netting can surely connect to this piece.

[Kate]

Beautiful. As I knew it would be. Both familiar and new. Loved it.

[Sara]

I am so completely blown away.

This is fantastic. And I can't wait to listen to the recording.

[fleming ackermann]

such truth here Christy. I loved it.

[Debbie Moderow]

Christy I just listened to the audio....tears welled up at the exact same time for me. When you are striking that fish.

It's just lovely, and speaks so much to me.

It was so very great to meet you!

Debbie Moderow

[Louise]

You did an amazing job editing and adapting this piece from the first time I read it here. So powerful and sensory, and rich with layers. Congratulations!!

[Christy]

Thank you friends. Debbie I loved meeting you and hope our paths cross again. Looking forward to your book coming out.