Building resilience
On the back of my last entry about resilience, I thought it rather fitting to continue build on the topic.
I sit weary eyed at my laptop right now after spending the night at the children’s hospital with my teenage son. He required surgery as a result of a fishing accident. Without going into too much detail, he was on his own when it happened.
There were 2 panicked parents, an ambulance and emergency surgery. However there was a green whistle, thank goodness, which kept the situation quite jovial and an abundance of gratitude for narrowly missing his eyeball.
Resilience was built last night no doubt; not only for my son but for my husband and I too.
Some parents may ask what kind of parent allows their kid out on a dinghy fishing by himself? Some may say this accident could have been prevented in one way or another, and some may say I was even negligent.
My son is extremely independent and very capable in emergencies and this is because I allow him the space to be that. To live his best life without projecting my fears onto him.
He stayed in that bed for hours before the surgery with a weighted fish lure/hook attached to his face. His fear of needles and blood smacking him right in the face.
When bad things happen to us, it is important to look at the positives of the situation rather than focusing on the negatives.
Some would say how unfortunate or unlucky! However I see that he was extraordinarily fortunate and lucky, and so does he. Yesterday could have changed all of our lives. That hook was 1 cm away from his eyeball. He may have lost his vision. But he didn’t, how lucky are we? There are many children who don’t ever leave those hospital beds. We got to leave. He will no doubt learn from this experience as will I and all the doctors and nurses who treated him last night. Accidents happen all the time, however how we chose to move forward is what’s most important. What do you choose?