I decided this was going to be personal health month, starting with getting all those uncomfortable check-ups checked off my list. I used the pandemic as an excuse, but the truth of the matter was I didn’t like going to the doctor. 

My first wellness “procedure” required using propofol as a mild sedative to put me in a twilight state. Immediately, it conjured up horrible memories of Michael Jackson, which prompted me to ask the very efficient nurse, “You are going to remember to wake me up, right?”

She looked at me as if to say, “If had a dime for every time someone asked me that question, I could retire.” Then she actually said, “Trust me, you will have a lovely nap, and yes, you’ll wake up. You won’t feel a thing.”

Ominous and reassuring all at the same time. Ultimately, the nurse was correct, except I had a hangover. I felt loopy.

While I was having my experience, my son, Sam, was making the eleven-hour drive home from college all alone. Before he left his college campus, he sent me a picture of his overpacked Pathfinder. The interior of his car was jammed so tightly it couldn’t have held a paper map. His three mountain bikes were strapped to the rack on the back. It looked like the truck from the Beverly Hillbillies; at the very least, it should have had a sign attached that read California or Bust.

While I waited for Sam’s safe arrival home, I could hardly keep my eyes open. I needed to stay awake since this was the same kid that totaled the car last year. As the hours ticked by, I lost my battle and eventually went upstairs to my bed, instantly falling into a deep sleep, like a low-grade coma. 

“Mom. Mom. Mom, wake up.”

“What, Sam?” I mumbled, not remembering he had been away.

“There’s a spider in my room. I’m sure it’s a black widow.”

Spiders are Sam’s kryptonite. Ironic since this kid dangles from a rope off the side of a mountain fifty feet up in the air. 

“Fine. Come sleep in the big bed,” I said my habitual response.

“Are you sure?” He was too tired from his trip to reason with me.

I couldn’t understand his hesitation; it’s not like he hasn’t hopped in the big bed before whenever he’s been scared, usually coming in with his blanket. Over the years all my kids found a sanctuary there. The thing I wasn’t grasping at that moment was that he wasn’t five years old anymore. 

The following day when I woke up, “AAAAHHHH!” I screamed in horror. There was a grown man sprawled out in my bed! At least six feet tall, facial hair, and a tattoo! A mountain man! The only thing I recognized was his blonde curls.

“Mom! Why are you yelling at me?” Sam rolled over in dismay. 

Once I got my faculties back, I looked at him, my baby boy. He was still wearing the same clothes he had on when he left Colorado twenty-four hours ago. Like Gulliver, he had grown too big to fit in the big bed.

I can’t quite figure out where that time went, but I know he will always be my little boy who is afraid of spiders.

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