I have a complex about my nose. When I was growing up, everyone admired my "perfect Precious Moments" nose. It was the perfect shape, slope, slant and size. When I was 13 (or 11 or somewhere around there), my head collided with someone else's at a pool party and my perfect nose ended up on the other side of my face. It was shattered so completely that the x-ray at the ER showed it as a whole and complete, unbroken nose. Never mind that anyone with 2 working eyes could see that it was swollen, in 2 pieces and on the other side of my face. Anyway, 3 days later at the doctor, they determined that yes, it was broken, but had begun healing back together. This was BAD. So, now reconstructive surgery was needed. I now have my perfect nose back and yes, I suppose you could say that I've had plastic surgery. Long story short: lightning struck again. I mean, HOW RANDOM IS THAT?
I was putting Phoenix down for a nap today. He had already been outta bed once and was not happy that I was putting him back in bed. (This was out of character for him, but this is how it went down. He's been "off" the last 2 days. We won't even mention the bruised bite mark on my hand courtesy of his little vampire teeth. That's a different story.) Anyway, I was readjusting his narrow little behind to put the covers on him. While doing so, he decided to rear up and clobber me with his giant cranium right on the perfectly reconstructed bone part of my perfect nose.
I fought blacking out, shed a few tears and fought the nausea all the way to my room. No blood, which was good. I think the swelling is only as minimal as it is because hubby rushed home form work with one of those old-fashioned ice bags and took care of me. It's broken, broken, broken! Though hubby begged me to go to the hospital, I didn't. I mean, seriously - it's in one piece, it's straight and it's still where it should be on my face. All the hospital will do is take an x-ray to confirm what I already know ( we know how well the x-ray turned out the last time!), give me pain meds and tell me to keep ice on it. See, I just saved us $3000!
Out of respect, let's have a moment of silence for my dearly departed and heretofor no longer, perfect nose.
Sitting down in front of the computer, explaining what Inauguration Day represented, what it meant and why this particular one is so very important, I didn't expect the tears that came. The more I told my natural born son and my Haitian son, who has just become a citizen of this wonderful country, about the great importance of this moment, the more choked up I became. To realize that for hundreds of years, black people of all nationalities have been disrespected, mistreated, made to live in a manner less than worthy....to witness this moment when equality has truly come. When a black man, has risen above, to now sit in the highest office in the land....That stirs emotions. It doesn't matter if you agree with his politics, or even if you personally like him. That one fact, the historicity of it all, is enough. As a mother now of black children, immigrated and now citizens, it is powerful. We watched the inauguration together, and though I doubt that either of them really "got" it, they will. Soon they will understand. Soon they will know that they lived in a time of change. They witnessed a historical turning point in our nation - one that will hopefully, prayerfully, bring about change for the good.
