The Pain of a Child

As I recently cleaned the scrape and applied the bandage to the knee of a weeping  grandchild I tried to project out how many more times in the life of this pure little girl will this happen?  How many more times will she have a scrape, a cut, a bruise, even a broken bone that will need to be tended to by a competent and compassionate caregiver? Undoubtedly more serious will be when she will she be called on to face a painful human relationship experience of loss, or failure, or disappointment,  or a broken heart or perhaps a lifelong aching that a little water, a dab of Neosporin, and a bandaid cannot help.  Who will help her then?  Or if no one steps forward to help, what will she have in her own physical/mental/spiritual ‘first-aid-kit’?  Where can she turn for peace or to be made whole?

As we proceed through the years we gain competencies to face all these inevitabilities. Yet we are all still relatively children.  We will still have to suffer pain.

There are things we can do.  We learn first aid skills in the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.  We buy first-aid kits and supplies.  We buy health insurance.  We buckle up in our seat-belts and put on our bicycle helmets and our knee pads and shin guards or we remember to take our cane or walker. We learn what is dangerous and what should be avoided. We look both ways and we listen before we step into the street.

 

No matter where we go, no matter what we do, no matter who we are with there will be risks associated with the endeavor.  And though the hazards may be greater or lesser or different in the different ages of man and in the different venues, we can and must learn coping and mitigating skills if we choose to engage. 

 

As a general rule, the more the potential or perceived fun, the greater the risk.  The faster we drive, the steeper the downhill, the greater the ‘degree-of-difficulty’ of the gymnastics floor exercise, the deeper the dive, the wilder the company (animal or people) the greater the risk. 

 

But some things we shouldn’t risk.  We shouldn’t risk them for our own sakes and we shouldn’t risk them for the sake of those who will be called upon to clean up our mess after us.  Or if we cannot or choose not to avoid the risky behavior should we not make provision ahead of time to protect ourselves and lessen the psychic pain of others who care about us? 

For sometimes, ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men’ cannot put humpty-dumpty together again.’

Because all boys and girls, all men and all women will through all their lives suffer pain to some degree or of some kind should not we all resolve to be competent first-responders or caregivers whenever and wherever we encounter pain in others?  I think we should.