Sick at home, alone

This week's rash of Facebook messages from friends who are at home with sick children reminds me sharply of the first time I left Laura home alone with the flu and went to work. She must have been about ten years old. Laura is pretty calm when she is sick, and she tends not to do very dramatic things like spike high fevers or go into spells of awesome vomiting - but still, the first time you drive off knowing your sick child is at home all alone is certainly memorable.

In those days, I was still getting used to being a single parent. I assumed that my ex-husband would help care for Laura when she was ill, as he always did when we lived together as a family. In the first months following our separation, I would ask him if she could spend sick days at his house if she had a cold, since he and his new partner often worked at home. Their house was on my way to the office, even after they moved out to Downers Grove, and we did that a few times, but it seemed like none of us really liked this arrangement.

Then she got the flu, and she was a lot more sick than just a cold. I spent one day at home with her. I probably could have figured out some way to stay home longer, but my job really is fairly demanding, and it's bad to cancel classes - students need to know they can count on their college teachers to show up and teach. There are only so many class meetings in a term, and we have to finish the course before the term ends, no matter what.

I thought hard about calling my ex and asking him to let Laura spend a couple of days on his sofa while I went to work. But what I could see, once I let myself see it, was that she would be more relaxed and more able to get well if she could stay home in her usual nest and not have the extra stress of being moved to her dad's. So I left her at home and crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. How strange it was to come to understand that she would be better off at home, on her own, than at her father's house with an adult present. But there was also liberation and a kind of peace in realizing that we would be fine without his help.

This week Laura has again been home with the flu, and I asked her if she could remember that long ago time. She does - but what she remembers is that she got to lie in my bed all day and watch TV. I'm glad.