This mother’s prayer

How do you say conjunctivitis in Dutch

God grant me the any serenity in the after hours waiting room transferring money from account to account to pay for this as my son (now fresh as a daisy after vomiting all morning) is learning Dutch on Duolingo.

Grant me the safety of the boy who walked out without a care in the world in front of my car because of course you feel like you’re invincible when your mother kissed your knee better when it had an invisible wound when you were little. Even if you slam doors now and call her bruh there’s a part of your still developing brain that still remembers that everything can be fixed with her love.

Grant me the patience not to scream and cry that once again the work week hasn’t started and it’s already fucked. Watching my little boy rub his hands up and down the chairs in the waiting room please grant me the ability to not consider all of the germs (the thousands and thousands of germs) because only one of us can be neurodivergent at 8am on a Monday in the after hours triage.

Grant me compassion for my child as I wipe gunky crap from his eyes and rank worst to best the symptoms of childhood illnesses - vomiting, the shits, pink eye, snot - in my pounding tired mind. Grant me gratitude for in this moment when I want to weep I am remembering the mother who told me she found out the reason why her boys kept getting pink eye was because they had a game where they would fart on each other’s pillows.

Grant me the audacity of the person who just said “TOO MUCH POLITICS” on their ‘reason for unsubscribing’ form as if some of us have the ability to just exist without politics. Grant me the courage to keep talking about politics our lives. Even if the demand is for ‘10 ways to get your baby to sleep’, grant me the privilege to keep my values and not cave in. Grant me the hunger for something more, something better for all of us. Grant me hope and imagination for something other than individualism and capitalism.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; that my child will never willingly accept someone taking his temperature. Even though he really fucking should because it doesn’t hurt I said it doesn’t hurt I said it doesn’t hurt I said I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Grant me the courage to change the things I can; and I’ll take any wisdom at this point. Please. Grant me wisdom to diagnose and heal without having to sit in a waiting room and imagine airborne viruses finding a home under the folds of my mask. Humble me because I had the petrol to get here didn’t I? I can pay can’t I? Where’s my gratitude for the road that I travelled on?

Grant me, grant me, grant me Creative NZ funds for me and my friends and all of the projects that matter, that you’ll need when everyone is depressed and summer is still months away. Grant me a career that better supports the orthodontic needs of a pre-teen.

Grant me sleep that is uninterrupted and let me wake to a household where nobody is coughing or sneezing or soldiering on. Let me wake to a day that is exactly as I planned it with no hushed debate about whose work is more important today.

Grant me the smile on the face of the two gardening women on the flu vaccine poster because I had the flu vaccine too so I deserve it.

Grant me time and space for friends and loved ones and adventures and anything other than bed rotting and listening to endless facts about Eurovision and Mister Fucking Beast in a fucking cave infecting my dreams that should be one the one place I can escape. (But can’t I just pretend to like Mister Beast? Wouldn’t a good mother…?).

And grant me the Ands if you can? The ‘I really fucking can’t cope with another sick day’ and ‘we can make it work, we always do’.

When he looks up at me through thick eyelashes, puffed eyelids, though unkept long hair (which I can’t cut because I once taught him ‘my body, my choice’), grant me the ability to breathe and say “tell me how to say I love you in Dutch”. Because I know distraction works; this isn’t our first rodeo is it (even though rodeos are the worst).

And as his face lights up and he says “ik hou zoveel van jou”, I do not need the universe to grant me gratitude because I already have it in abundance.

If God is a mother let her remind me that I can wipe my child’s tears away (then sanitise) and hold him close and make him feel safe.

If I can’t do much I can at least do that.

And.

It’s all pretty fucking annoying tbh.

And.

It’ll be ok.