It began in December. The week of exams, maybe the week before. Whichever week it was, it was a week that was Already Loaded, such that I came home from school at the end of each day Weary To My Bones, only to have all the jobs of homemaker and mother waiting for my attention.
It was a mercy, in fact, that I discovered them on a Friday, and not earlier, as that would have made a long week Even Longer. And the week that was ahead of me, after this discovery, would be More Than Long Enough. Emma Grace had head lice.
Oh. How Very Awful.
I didn’t know what they were at first. I had never seen them before. This was something that Other People got in Other Schools A Long Time Ago. Not me. And certainly not my daughter.
Of course, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed it would be. First of all, it would seem that she hadn’t picked it up at school. And when I reported it, as was my duty, to Allison in the office so that she could send a letter home to the parents of all of Emma Grace’s classmates, her response was so gracious and so matter-of-fact that the ignominy of this situation began, almost palpably, almost visibly, to diminish right there in the office.
Nonetheless, the ensuing evenings exhausted me. I shampooed her hair and shampooed it and left the shampoo to soak, and rinsed, and then combed and combed and combed through Each And Every Strand of her hair, every evening finding nits so infinitesimally small that I could not even believe I was seeing them.
I exaggerate Not.
Neither do I exaggerate my Exhaustion, and a sense of Growing Despair that, for me, always accompanies exhaustion.
Those were bleak days.
Then they were gone. Praise Be.
And then it was Christmas vacation.
But the next disaster was on its way. Because, as you know if you read this blog regularly and/or are a friend with whom I communicate on a regular basis, days after the new year our sewer pipe vomited forth its contents into our laundry/playroom and we had to spend three nights in a Residence Inn. Yes. And Even Now the playroom is stripped of all its comforts, the dry wall is, in some places, missing, we have only just now finally connected the new washer and dryer, and the washer leaks. But that is a story for another blog.
Now, really, this isn’t so bad either. I mean, it’s getting old– the cold concrete under our feet, the toys displaced to the living room. But still. There is Tremendous Suffering in the world. I have yet to taste Any of it.
Nonetheless. I was just a wee bit unsettled when, having told a colleague about the playroom eruption, she commented, “These things always come in threes.” Yes, I was unsettled because, as I looked about me, all I could see was Two. Lice. Sewage. That’s only two in anyone’s math book.
I am not a superstitious person. I put my faith in the Living God.
But Still.
And then I realized it, even though the realization came late. It came Very Late, considering that Bill had been driving us to and from school all week. You would think I would have realized it when, needing to run an errand during the school day, I was confronted with the fact that I didn’t have a car on campus. Yes. Number Three had been upon us for Days. I was living in Number Three, and I didn’t even know it: The transmission in Bill’s car was out, his car was in the shop, and we were, once again, Making Do.
Phew.
We picked up the car today, and we got the first check from the insurance company so that we can begin making repairs downstairs. And Emma Grace’s hair is Free and Clear.
That wasn’t so bad. No. Not so bad At All.
“Everything is necessary that He sends. Nothing can be necessary that He withholds.”
There is a Great Deal of Comfort in that.
