Of one thing I was always sure. Being an emergency room nurse would have been impossible. It is astonishing, really how God spared me the normal amount of blood and guts that are a given when raising nine children. There was an appendicitis for one daughter, in which I saw no body fluids. A few stitches on the fifth child's chin. Even Benjamin, with his mammoth medical history including a dozen hospitals, a score of therapists, and ongoing medications has rarely been sick. There were no broken bones, which could be the result of God's mercy or the fact that we had no aspiring athletes. 

There were close calls, to be sure. When Micah was four he and his buds were in a car playing when one of them yanked off the emergency brake and they rolled down a steep driveway. The oldest five kids each totaled a car, but I was never a witness. When they called home to ask what to do next, they always wanted to speak to their father.

"Hi, Mom. Is Dad there?"

"No, he's at the office. Anything I can do for you?" I offered. 

"That's ok, I'll try later." 

They crashed cars in L.A., upstate New York, driving home from college at two am after packing all day, and just for comic relief, in Ireland. That was a rental, and apparently the roads in Dublin are both narrow and curvy, on top of the drive-on-the-left-side thing. Crashing against a fence was preferable to being smashed by a tourist bus. 

One of the possibilities for panic however happened while I was aware but too far away to make a difference. The oldest half of our brood traveled aound Europe together, arriving and leaving at different times as their schedules allowed. Micah was last to cross the pond, and had been largely depending on the generosity of his siblings. He did indeed have a ticket back from a German airport, with a layover in Dublin, and all that remained was to get to the airport in time. 

The trouble is, Frankfurt has two airports. 

When he realized that he was at the wrong one, with a few hours before take off and no money in his pocket, he used his last coins to call. 

"I need thirty dollars immediately please deposit in my account." Click. 

Which I would have been willing to do, had I known his bank information, and it hadn't been Friday night. This was of course before such brilliant money whisking apps as Cash and Venmo. I was helpless. We had no way of calling him. He had no way of buying a new ticket, or boarding a bus to the right airport. Would he arrive at JFK as planned? He could not phone if he did. He could not phone if he didn't. His sister decided to risk it and meet at the agreed landing time the next afternoon. 

I pictured Micah washing dishes in a German pub for three months until he earned enough to get home. In my imagination he was lonely, and hungry, eating the leftovers off of customer's plates. Then I did the only thing I could think of. I prayed. Rather than vague scenarios of magically changing the particulars of his departing gate, I visualized a compassionate driver, who allowed a forlorn college student a free ride across town on a mostly empty midnight bus.

Which is what happened. 

I was left with my over active fantasies for the extremely long wait until Chara got home. With her weary brother.  I offered to feed him anything he wanted. But really all he wanted to do was sleep. 

As he climbed the stairs to flop into bed it occurred to me that perhaps I had not been completely helpless after all.