Time Machine Do Over
Christopher Laney 
A week ago Friday I found myself at an urgent care facility with my 8 year-old, Cort. Less than 20 minutes before we’d been at the ballpark waiting for his older brother to play. To kill some time before the game, Cort ambled over to sit on a wooden step and took a swipe with his hand to clean it off before plopping down. When he started crying, I rushed over.
As I neared, he lifted his hand to show a huge splinter sticking out of his index finger. Actually, splinter is the wrong word; “wood chunk” better describes it. Blood flowed from the wound, running down into the creases of his finger as he held his wrist in his other hand. I tried to calm him even as I started to whisk the chunk out. The half inch of wood that protruded from his finger gave me plenty of surface area to grab.
Things don’t always turn out the way you see them in your head. Instead of the wood slipping right out, the part I tugged on simply broke. Not until I cleared the blood away did I realize he had jammed that piece of wood all the way through the tip of his finger. Some of the blood had been coming from the opposite end of the wood where the tip had pierced his skin on its way out.
Urgent care, here we come.
With a scared little kid in tow, I made arrangements with another parent to stay with John since my wife was in Seattle for work. I kept Cort as calm as possible and even though he hardly made any sound as we hurried to the car, tears spilled down his cheeks.
“They’re never going to get it out,” he sobbed, as he climbed into his seat.
“They’ll get it out,” I replied, cringing inside as I tried to imagine how.
After a few seconds of silence, Cort said one more thing.
“I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and not do it.”
Yes, Cort, I thought. Everyone in the world would like one of those.
His statement bounced through my head all weekend. Many people say they wouldn’t change anything in their past, mainly because everything happens for a reason. I do believe that. But still, it's easier to say that when you know it's impossible to go back. How tempting would it be if you really could slip into a time machine and erase a boneheaded mistake or reverse a horrible outcome? I'd have trouble narrowing the field if I could only pick one "do over."
But time machines don’t exist. At least not yet. So we must take comfort that those scarring events yield gems, ones our minds polish to a high sheen as we replay them numerous times within our heads. Whether the process takes minutes or years, that sheen ultimately burns this valuable conviction within us: “I’ll never do that again.”
Until Cort's time machine is invented, we should embrace our scars, both inside and out. I noticed a t-shirt a month ago that conveyed it best: Scars are tattoos with better stories.
As for the little guy's finger, the doctor pumped so much numbing agent into the top of it, the tip swelled to the size of a grape. After enlarging the entry point with a scalpel, the doctor removed the offending object with surgical tweezers. Know that Cort took the whole procedure better than I did. When I was younger, blood never bothered me, even my own. But watching your kids bleed is a different story.
Cort played the next day as if nothing major had happened. But wheels are always turning in that boy's noggin. Several times I wondered what flashed through his mind as I watched him lift his eyes from his Legos to stare into space. I hope his head is filled with the beginning blueprints for that time machine of his.
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Friday, June 10, 2011 at 1:45PM | in Guidance, Living in the Present, Uncertainty | Share | 12 Comments | Email Article Tweet
Reader Comments (12)
Wonderful blog this time...and I know Cort will never "run" his hand over wood like that again..what a little man he is!!
Yes, he learned that lesson the hard way.
This article made me think of some of the things I'd like to do over. :) Until that time I do hope I can polish those moments into gems. Thanks for the encouragement. I like the way you take a common occurrence and turn it into a life lesson! Way to go, Chris.
Thanks, Lisa. I try to look for the lesson in everything.
It's Sunday morning and I'm sitting here ruminating over a choice I made a few years ago. This morning it feels very much like a mistake. I didn't listen at the time to the Guidance I received and so I'm here turning it over in my mind. Then, I see your post in my email inbox and I just know it will help me move out of this place. You always seem to meet my need. Angels come in many guises. I'm going to be working on that idea of polishing it into one of life's valuable lessons.
I've been fascinated since I was a child with the idea of time machines, never realizing then how much I would wish for one now, but for very different reasons. I, too, have a strong belief that everything happens for a reason and this lesson needed learning. I suppose it's taught me to be a better Listener. And that's what matters. But, still... Let me know if Cort makes any progress... :)
This is a great story! I thought I was the only one who had kept the wishful idea of a time machine locked in my head. So many times I have fantasized redoing events that would have produced an entirely different outcome. And to think a child actually SAID it. Now I realize that maybe we all have wished for this. My comfort is, to embrace all the favorable outcomes in my life and train myself to focus on looking ahead, not back. I am so glad your son is ok and it does appear that he will be the sensitive and imaginative person his dad is. Cindy
Great post, Chris. I love how you find the lessons in everything. And tell Cort he's a champ. =)
Thanks for the comment, Teresa. Uncanny how the timing of these work. But then again, we shouldn't be surprised, right?
I think most of us could benefit from being a better listener. I know that's true for me sometimes. I'll keep you posted on Cort's progress. :)
Thanks, Cindy. Cort is doing well and you can't even really tell where the wood piece went in to his finger.
I think Cort will zoom past me on the imagination front. He's already writing stories, sitting from 30 minutes to an hour to type them out. I'm really intrigued to know if he will keep it up, or will he forget about them at some time and pick something else up. We'll see.
Good to hear from you.
Hi Dena. I will definitely tell Cort!
Chris, We would all love do overs so we don't suffer or experience pain. We project the perfect outcome had we made what we think is the "right" choice this time. Unfortunately, something worse could have occurred had we made a different choice, an outcome that we couldn't have predicted at the time. It would be nice to be able to play God and determine our future, but that isn't possible. Had Cort not brushed his hadn across the bench, could something even worse have occurred. Could the splinter or wood chuck have entered another part of his body that is more sensative. Would he have missed a lesson that would have exacted more dire learning later. As a parent we wish we could keep our children safe and free from harm. Maybe this was the least painful time for Cort to learn to look before he touches anything. Keep up the great work. I love reading your posts because they make me think so.
Good additional insights, Tony. Thanks for posting them.