\u201c-Mom, when did it hurt the most?\u201d Do asks, big eyes wide, her broken arm bandaged tightly.<\/p>\n
I stay silent and think.
\n\u201cWhen your toe was broken? That hurt, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
I stay silent.
\n\u201cWhen they stitched your knee, the one with the big scar now? That really hurt, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Still silent, I try to answer the question for myself.
\n\u201cDoes it ever not hurt?\u201d Do raises her eyebrows.<\/p>\n
Moms hurt.
\nBut the kind of hurt moms feel is different.
\nAnd usually, regardless of the type of injury, there\u2019s one spot that always aches.<\/p>\n
In the chest.
\nAs if an old laundry pin is pressing down inside.<\/p>\n
On the penultimate day of the old year, Do fell off the climbing frame.
\nOn the way to the hospital, I looked into my child\u2019s eyes\u2026 and felt pain.
\nHis arm. And somewhere deeper, mine.<\/p>\n
Why so many cars? Why so many red lights? Why is the hospital so far?
\nIn my mind, the pressing pin made strange and entirely illogical questions arise.<\/p>\n
Later, pacing outside the X-ray room\u2026 waiting for permission to enter and meet the diagnosis\u2026 I realized that time had stopped.
\nOut of place. Untimely. Unexpectedly.<\/p>\n
But the minutes, which normally tick by in counts to sixty, got tangled in counting, and only near the end would they start over again.<\/p>\n
It can\u2019t be that time, which normally flies like a speeding autobahn and is always too short, can suddenly become so slow.
\nSo long.
\nCan it hurt, these slowly passing minutes?
\nIt turns out, when something pinches your heart\u2026 it can.<\/p>\n
When I was a child, I often got sick.
\nAnd each time, down to the \u201callowed moments,\u201d I knew Aunt Saul\u0117 would be called with that cursed metal box, where the \u201csharp-toothed\u201d syringes I feared like the devil feared the cross would sleep politely.
\nSo when I heard the doorbell and realized it was Aunt Saul\u0117\u2026 I would flood with tears.
\nMom would calm me and say, \u201cYou know, Moms hurt twice as much\u2026\u201d \u2014 I thought she just lightly salted the \u201cunder-tears\u201d situation.<\/p>\n
And then I became a mom. Twice over.<\/p>\n
Every time I think:
\nShe was damn right.<\/p>\n
Moms get sick.
\nNot with fractures.
\nNot with injuries.
\nNot with burns.
\nMoms mostly hurt with strange little chest \u201cpinches\u201d \u2014 which don\u2019t even have a code in the disease classifier.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s no treatment.
\nJust this.
\nDon\u2019t be foolish.
\nIf something presses uncomfortably\u2026
\nTake it and throw it away.
\nRip it out like a stuck button.
\nCrush it like a shoe that rubs.
\nSnap it like an irritating splinter.<\/p>\n
If you can.<\/p>\n
But you can\u2019t.
\nOr maybe you just don\u2019t want to.
\nYou press the one in pain into your arms and wait for the laundry-pin that has pinched in the wrong place to loosen on its own.<\/p>\n
For Moms.<\/p>\n
With a \u201cpinched\u201d heart,
\nV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-17535","istorija","type-istorija","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istorija\/17535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istorija"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/istorija"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}