Napkin rings crafted from toilet paper tubes, the wrong kind of pickle, jeans at the dinner table -- I had already made too many concessions.

My irritation grew as the girls lost interest in helping halfway through peeling the apples. Determined to be thankful for my family and friends, though, I tried not to sweat the small stuff.

Thanksgiving morning brought major sweating -- and shivering. The flu had struck. I was too weak to crawl out of bed, much less roast a turkey and conjure up gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans, piping hot and on the table at the same magical moment.

My favorite holiday would have to proceed without me.

My husband and daughters sprang into action. Never were green beans trimmed and potatoes peeled with such enthusiasm!

The clatter of utensils and easy cooperation drifted up the stairs. Were these the same kids who could barely put a used glass in the dishwasher or the husband whose culinary talents began and ended with spaghetti sauce?

The table was strewn with the post-feast wreckage of crumbs and spilled salt. Grease-stained, mismatched napkins flopped helter-skelter, their toilet paper tube rings askew nearby. One lone napkin stood crisply at the head of the table, still encircled by gaily painted cardboard.

“Mommy (we miss you),” read the hand-drawn place card.

I gave thanks.

By Lorrie Goldin

Labels: Flu, gravy, green beans, Lorrie Goldin, mashed potatoes, mommy, Thanksgiving

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“Whoa,” is my immediate response. I hesitate after this initial jolt and then pull up again, trying to lift my heavy throbbing head off the wet pillow.

My condition shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all I’d been up throughout the night gasping for water and trying to double up the blankets around my shivering frame.

I blink back at the clock, trying to register the urgency of getting up after five snooze alarms. My throbbing head cradles the pillow, which feels like a rock rubbing a sore. You’ve got to get the kids ready for school. You’ve got to get the kids ready for school. It registers: a checklist of actions dart across my numb brain. The recognition of how impossible actual racing through the morning is also registers, and compels me to try again.

Ooof, up I go, the motion seems to pull against the front of my skull, forcing my eye socket tendons tight against my brain, while a cascade of soreness ripples down my body.

On and on I stagger to my robe, to a sweater I hastily pull on top of the robe. Still shivering. Down the stairs. Ow, ow, ow to the kitchen where I stumble about pulling cereal cartons down and start laying out lunch boxes.

There should be a Mom Medal of Courage given at times like this when it takes every will of your being to press on.

“Mom, are you OK?” my nine-year old cautiously inquires as she skips down the stairs.

“No, I’m sick,” a throaty bark returns back. Her eyes widen.

All three children now eye me from the table. One of them decides to test the waters by beginning to tease another. It’s all I can do to manage a deep, “Don’t you dare. Not today. I am sick.” Little bodies retract in their seats and quietly finish their Cheerios.

This impact doesn’t get past me and I realize I’d better use it to my necessary advantage. "Mom’s sick today guys,” I begin haltingly. “You need to step up and help. I need help. After breakfast you need to. . . COUGH! COUGH!. . . put your dishes in the sink and go upstairs to get dre. . . COUGH! COUGH! … dressed. You need to help.”

And in an amazing fluid turn of events -- they do. Quietly, helpfully, swifly. . . obediently.

With time to spare they pile into the car without so much as a tease or a defiant standoff (the three-year old’s morning modus operandi).

On the drive, as I squint painfully past my headache to the street ahead, I hear William say that he is going to make me a get-well card. Lauren chimes in that she will, too, and that they will all make one together as well. Interjected in this loving conversation are hopes and wishes that I feel better. And soon.

Huge hugs at drop off at the elementary school and preschool, and I stagger home with the realization I have a rare almost three hours before pickups begin. I pull back on pajamas over tender skin and collapse into bed, weakly doubling up the blankets around me.

For a brief few hours I will get to do what dads do when they’ve been walloped by the flu. I will get to stay in bed and just sleep.

By Maija Threlkeld

Labels: elementary school, Flu, Maija Threlkeld, preschool, sick dads, sick mom

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I woke up last Thursday planning on taking my five-year-old daughter to school and then running a host of errands. As many spiritual teachers have said, “The universe laughs when you make plans."

My plan was shattered as my stomach lurched and I ran to the bathroom beginning a day-long devotion to the porcelain god.

The stomach flu had hit me with a vengeance. No warning, just a seven-thirty a.m. reminder that I am not in control of my own life. I staggered back to bed and croaked at Keith, my husband, “You have to take Miranda to school.”

He looked at me, thought for a second and smiled. “Of course, sweetie, you’re sick. But what does Miranda eat for lunch?”

I tried to answer but a stronger force, my stomach, made me run back to the bathroom. A few moments later, his head poked past the door and he asked the same question. At that point, I just gasped, “Anything she wants. Just give her whatever she wants.”

Pictures of chocolate cake, brownies, fruit rollups, and licorice sticks danced through my head as I imagined Miranda’s requests. But that was all wiped clean a moment later, and I was back in the moment with me.

After passing out for a few hours, I woke to the sound of my phone. My husband was on the line. “Can you pick up Miranda from school?” My sheet was soaked with sweat, my head spinning as I tried to sit up.

“I’ll see if I can get my girlfriend to do it. Otherwise, I’ll call you back.” I collapsed on my bed and barely managed to dial her number.

Luckily for me, I have friends who have children in the same grade. This one wonderful woman picked up Miranda and cared for her as I lay twitching in my bed. By evening, the worst was over and Keith had gathered up Miranda and brought her home.

As I lay in bed slowly recovering, I thought, “How do people without community do it? How do single mothers do it? I am so blessed. I am so blessed.”

By Georgie Craig

Labels: Flu, friendship, Georgie Craig

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“Hold me?” my four-year-old daughter whispers from a pile of blankets in the middle of the hide-a-bed.

She’s been out here in the living room for twenty-four hours now with a flu bug.

First, she’d been pale and stoic, retching so often over a seven-hour period that I quit counting after she hit the double digits.

Next, she and I spent a steel bar in the back kind of night side-by-side on the hide-a-bed while my husband and son slept together in the master bedroom, steering clear of our makeshift infirmary.

Today, with cheeks flushed and forehead hot, she’s laid on the hide-a-bed alternating between short naps and long stares at different objects in the room -- the Christmas tree, the guitar, the fish tank -- scaring me with the questions she whispers: “Are the fish going to live very long? And if they die, are we just going to get new ones?”

Between cups of coffee and trips to the laundry room, I lean over her and kiss her warm cheeks.

“Hold me, momma?”

There it is again.

I sweep aside the blankets, stack some pillows behind me, and stretch my body the length of the bed.

“Come here, darlin’,” I say quietly, pulling her toward me and curling her against me.

And with her head tucked under my chin, her ear to my chest, we’re back to that familiar position we established in her infancy -- back to the ultimate comfort, that primal whisper, the heartbeat.

By Anjie Reynolds

Labels: Anjie Reynolds, Flu, Sick Child

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