Experience
My closest friends and I, are like siblings. And we act as such, call each other as such, even our kids know us as aunt and uncles. Something I feel it should be. And we love each other’s kids just as we would our flesh and blood ones. In fact actually being flesh and blood wouldn’t make us any closer than we are. Each of us come from a different walk of life. I am the pagan, as is my significant other… well loosely. His brother, one of my best friends and his wife are Lutheran. And our other best friend is Catholic. So it’s myself with the present love of my life, Ryuu, his step brother Brod, which in the end the step part has made no difference to them, his wife Elthea, and our mutual friend Amos.
I have been blessed to be called aunt by 3 little ones, 2 from Brod and Elthea, a boy and a girl, and one from Amos, a boy.
But this experience, actually only has to do with Amos and his son, Daric.
Daric is like your average 5-year-old boy, energetic and messy, always playing with his toys. But if you look into his eyes, there is a clarity there that speaks volumes to his innocence and his understanding of the world. And I know that little boy one day will be greatly in touch with the world beyond our physical one, that is if he chooses to follow that path.
And his personality does reflect it. Even with his speech impediment, which makes it very hard for him to speak and be heard, he still makes it known that he understands more than we think. Every time I am with him I can feel that little boy has power, and can see far more that I will more than likely ever see. I often wonder just what he sees and experiences. But enough of that.
I have always been closer to Amos than I have Brod, or at least I have been since Brod introduced me to Amos. And Daric of course captured my heart the first time I heard his voice over the phone, and even further stole it the moment I meet him.
Now we are all busy enough and far enough apart that we don’t get to see each other as much as we would like. We are lucky if we see each other once a month. But we try to talk at least once a week. Amos and I are known for having 3 hour phone calls as many as 5 times a week. No joke. Thank the gods for unlimited minutes.
So when we do see each other we make the most of it and spend as much time as possible together.
Well, leave it to the 5-year-old to make it memorable.
It was the weekend before Christmas. Which in terms of religion, means nothing for me. It means a day for family and friends for me, remnant of the days when I was a christian, over a decade and almost a half ago. Christmas still means a lot to me, don’t get me wrong, it just doesn’t mean to me what it does to most people. The whole season means good will and good fortune to have the lives that we lead, for family and friends, and to celebrate the love that we have for each other.
I do celebrate Yule as a Wiccan. The rebirth of God. The changing of the Season, and the beginning of the days growing longer as the shortest day of the year. And I have always experienced a sense of power and shift in significance in the day. But that is another discussion.
Amos and I were relaxing on the sofa in the living, happy to be sitting down and not chasing Daric around the house any more now that his playmate had left, but of course even though it’s 7:30 and he’s been playing with his friend all day, he of course still has all the energy in the world and is tossing a ball back and forth with me. This game would not be complete without me pretending to lose the ball now and again when in all actuality the ball is behind my back. We can not forget Amos taking the ball and holding it just out of Daric’s reach, only moving it just within reach after Daric as attempted futility to get the ball at least 4 times.
Now is a good time to mention Daric is baby-faced. While he is 5, almost 6, he honestly looks as if he 3. Tall but 3, and scrawny. I know 4-year-olds bigger than him.
So of course when he wrestles with Amos to get the ball, I feel the need to tickle him, pretend to eat him, and blow raspberries against his neck all of which causes him to giggle like a mad man. The kid loves it.
Honestly, sometimes it’s just a vision that flashes through my head, one that never quite makes sense. I’ll never really understand what prompts it, this one struck me when I was tickling and let him get away to get the ball and running to the other side of the room. But imagine my horror when not five minutes later after it flashes through my mind it happens.
Daric had just escaped me and managed to pull the ball out from under his father and shoot past me, and then trip. Now over what I will never know, Amos thinks it was a blanket on the floor, I don’t think it was, but it matters not when the result is the same. A 5-year-old tripping and falling, a solid hard wood edge on an end table holding a small Christmas tree, that almost falls over, the horrible noise of a very loud thud as that 5 year old’s head finds the edge of the table, and my heart stopping.
Amos doesn’t like admitting it, he didn’t think Daric hit his head until Daric was screaming and holding his head crying in my lap. But I knew immediately, I had seen it already after all. I had immediately flown off the sofa and scooped him up, which he resisted at first, he tried to curl up under the coffee table, but this little sprite wasn’t getting away from the second time, not when I can see in my mind’s eye, the wound, right behind the ear, bleeding.
I held him tight, trying to still him and clasp a hand to a wound that I haven’t even seen yet, haven’t even asked for the Reiki to flow yet and it’s already turned on nice and hot. But what 5-year-old just sits there calmly and quietly when they hit their head that hard. go ahead, I’ll wait.
Amos took Daric from me to get a look at the wound, I see it first, of course, I know exactly where it is, course I didn’t expect that much blood.
Head wounds are nasty, they bleed, a lot. Even with this knowledge, I’m surprised. Not even a minute has passed yet and there’s a lot of blood, it runs in rivers down his neck and on to his jersey.
By the time the minute mark even passed, Daric had squirmed his way down Amos’s Legs, to which Amos let him have the floor, but only after putting him in the middle of the room directly under the light so he can see it.
With a napkin in hand I press my hand firmly against the gash. It’s about 1-2 inches directly behind the left ear. We measured it later, it’s about a 1/4 inch long. And the bump, looked like someone cut an egg length-wise down and put it around the wound. Amos of course is running around looking for medical supplies now that he has seen the damage and knows I have this part taken care of, not before telling Daric to relax, that’ll be okay.
Reiki flowing out of me has always felt hot, with a strong tingling in the center of my palms, it’s actually at this point I asked for help from the gods to help heal him. I know each Reiki healer is different, whether it guardians, angels, or what not, for me I have always looked to the gods and ask for help in healing. And of course, the Reiki always feels stronger when I ask for help in healing others, both in the sense that it is strong when I ask and when healing others.
Surprisingly, Daric calms down quite quickly, his baby blue eyes lock on to mine, and I see clarity and understanding. Makes me wonder if somewhere in his mind he knows what I am doing, and I do wonder if he was soothed by the Reiki. I soothed him by rubbing circles on the back of his wrist with my free hand and whispering to him.
Amos is an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and thus does know what he is doing in tending his son, I promise. And knew that the wound was nasty enough that he was going to need a trip to the Emergency room for stitches to make it stop bleeding, he just wanted it under control. So I guess you can imagine his surprise when he has me remove my hand and the wound, has stopped bleeding and has clotted. It’s barely a surface wound, so with a butterfly suture, he closes it, and tries to call Daric’s mother for medical information, and it takes a little bit to get her. In about the 10 minutes it takes to get her, Daric is bouncing around again after being tested to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. I sit on the floor leaning back in amusement. I mean this kid is bouncing back from this as if it didn’t happen. By the time we actually get a hold of Daric’s mom and she requests a picture, the swelling is almost gone and the bleeding has not resumed, in fact it has scabbed quite well.
To say the least Amos is impressed, and within a mater of minutes, Nurse Grandma, literally on the nurse part, declares that what has been done already is enough for the wound. No stitches are needed since it has already closed, scabbed, and swelling gone down, and Daric already returned to his happy, bouncy, rambunctious self. But that doesn’t stop the other EMTs in the house from reviewing him before passing on the same declaration.
And surprisingly, I feel as if I can finally breath. I felt like the entire time I was holding my breath, while discussing my medical knowledge, that has just been picked up over the years from the nurses and EMTs I am friends with and the endless reading I have done, and the medical opinions of the actually trained medical personnel. At this time my chest loosens and my heart starts beating again.
And I have never been so thankful for Reiki healing in my life. Daric has been cleared, no stitches needed, and is just fine.