A mother's worries

When I was in the hospital, I met a woman whose son was in Iraq. She told me one morning when I was there and The Good Son and Mr. Zelda were gone to get breakfast. She was one of the staff pulled from another floor to administer medication in my IV. She said, how are you, I said, fine. My son's mess was on the sofa, and my husband's was on the recliner. She looked and I said, my son and husband, they are camped out. She said, I see. She cleaned the end of the port to my vein and began giving a saline push, which burned a little, then very slowly, she injected my thyroid medication and another saline push and a big dose of stomach medication. It took a while. The news was on and they were showing soldiers in Iraq and they were doing some acts of community work with children. My son is there she said. I said, I'm sorry. She said, me too. I tried to get him to run, you know go to Mexico or somewhere or even go to jail. He didn't want to go. I said, he's probably okay. She said, yeah, he is not a fighting soldier but he is still there and I worry every minute of every day. I said, I would too. I don't know but I felt obligated and I said, my son wanted to join, when he was out of school, and the recruiters were everywhere and I was going nuts trying to talk him out of it but then I mentioned the shape of his knees, bad knees, and they gave him a physical and he flunked. She said, you are lucky. I said, when he was having all the knee pain and surgery and not getting better, well, I thought it was a curse but it turned out to have kept my baby home. She said, we count our blessings where we can. I said, I'll be thinking about your son. She said, thanks.