Rather than writing resolutions, I’m sharing a New Year story with you. This is a fictional story based entirely on real events from my experiences of raising my children in China.

 

In the middle of the afternoon, on January 3rd, Eliza, the youngest of three, fearlessly propelled herself forward on her push scooter, down the paved road of the enclosed housing complex. This road was usually empty and safe but was occasionally travelled by electric scooters whose drivers swerved around the multiple speed bumps, unconcerned for others, and therefore presented a danger to seven-year-old girls who are still learning to mind their surroundings, especially when racing to keep up with two older brothers.

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Steam lazily swirled from the two peppermint mochas that Brad placed on the table. It was the last day of the holiday and Danielle took a deep breath, trying to gather strength for her weary body. Exhaustion pulled her down. The demands of the holidays had depleted her and she was well aware of how ill-equipped she was to return to the regular responsibilities of life. She turned her focus to the stillness of her home. Their three kids had finally gathered roller blades, scooters and water bottles and had made their way into the tiny corridor outside of their fifteenth floor apartment and down the elevator. Had they remembered their helmets? Danielle absentmindedly wondered.

As a hush descended over their home, and Danielle smiled at her husband, breathing in the peppermint, chocolate aroma, the background noises seemed to grow. There was drilling three floors up and the school next door had a constant buzz. It hadn’t even stopped on Christmas morning. The family had listened to the brass band practicing while opening their gifts. The familiar sound of kids blowing into their trumpets as loud as they could teased Danielle’s just subsided headache.

Wishing for just a few minutes of actual peace, actual quiet, she sighed. She was tired of dealing with the noise of a Chinese city of eight million people – and not just the people, but sounds that should be relegated to the country, like the rooster that lived on the tenth floor of their building and woke her up every morning at five am.

“Doesn’t that peppermint taste amazing?” Brad’s warm voice pulled her back to the present.

“Yes,” she laughed, dunking a piece of candy cane into her mocha. The broken fragments that had arrived from Canada on December 29th, a taste of childhood memories, had been a highlight for Danielle. She delighted in any opportunity to share her childhood experiences with her children, whose experiences were so different from her own. The kids had been excited too, and she wondered if they had appreciated the broken candy more than the gifts she had scoured the city for.

“Well, was it worth all of the work?” Brad asked, carefully sliding the border of the 500 piece puzzle, a wintery scene of a horse and sleigh that the whole family was working on, out of the way. If they couldn’t have a white Christmas (Danielle and Brad’s childhoods had been filled with them) they could at least build one.

“It was exhausting. I wanted to have gifts to represent each of the relatives who have been so generous, to help the kids connect with them. But the toy selection is limited. I searched so many different malls. And then there was that day Eliza and I did the forty-five minute walk home because we couldn’t find a taxi, only to discover that the elevator wasn’t working and we had to climb the fifteen flights of stairs to get home!”

She took a long sip and the warm mocha soothingly slipped down her throat. “I still can’t believe that the local brand remote control car is broken already. I knew it was a risk but I thought it would last longer than two days!”

“I guess we should have gone for the imported one instead. It’s just hard to spend the money when we know we could get it back home for half the price,” Brad admitted.

“Well, the kids are loving the other toys and are delighting in a break from schoolwork. I just need another week to recover!”

The door pushed open and a cool breeze flowed in. Both parents looked up, struck again by their oldest son, Seth’s, height and maturing face. He took two steps toward them, then paused, unnaturally still.

“The bathroom is to your left,” Brad jested. Seth opened his mouth and paused again. He thoughtfully tried to figure out how to bear his message without sending his mother into a panic.

“Eliza fell down,” his words rolled out softly. Danielle, unalarmed, took another drink of her mocha, only slightly acknowledging to herself the hundreds of times that her children had fallen.

“Is she okay?” Brad asked, puzzled by Seth’s eerie calmness. “She lost three teeth.”

“What?” Danielle jumped up, spilling the mocha over the new puzzle. Her cheeks instantly aflame.

“She was hit by an electric scooter.” Her hands now sweating.

Danielle was in the hallway, with shoes on, having pushed the elevator button before another word could be uttered. “Next time yell, ‘Mom, get in the elevator now!’” she heard herself say as the doors closed.

The elevator started going down before she realized that she hadn’t asked where Eliza was. She hadn’t brought bandages, a first aid kit or even a phone. She felt as unprepared as she had holding her first newborn in her arms, years ago. The elevator transported her to the fearful unknown.

With her mind in overdrive, the ride gave her time to think through multiple scenarios and questions. Did Eliza have a head injury? How much blood was lost? Broken bones? And the three teeth, which ones were they? Were they adult teeth? She strained to remember which teeth her daughter had lost but fear blurred reality.

She tried to push the dread of the local hospital, crowded, unsterile and years behind those back home, out of her mind.

“I can do this,” she told herself. “A mother can do anything for her child.”

The doors opened and she bolted out, heading towards the gate that led to the main road, thinking she would find them there. She hoped her second son Micah was being a comfort. Knowing she had an overactive imagination, she tried to push away the disturbing image of Eliza laying in a pool of blood, her brother crying at her side.

It wrenched Danielle’s heart. “Help me, God,” she uttered.

Rounding the corner towards the door, it opened before she reached it.

And there was Eliza. Standing! Walking!

“Mommy!” The young girl threw herself into her mother’s arms and tears spilled from both sets of eyes.

“Are you okay?” the mother asked, her voice filled with the softest tenderness. She bent down to get a closer look. “Does it hurt?” Her daughter, with lips stained and swollen, blood streaked across her cheek, reached for her mother’s hand and deposited three small, white teeth. Danielle shivered and pulled her close.

The mother and two children huddled into the elevator and she asked her daughter to open her mouth. Bright red gums, thick with blood showed gaps where teeth once stood in a row, like soldiers standing sentinel.

“They were your adult teeth,” Danielle quivered, trying to remain calm, reminding herself that her injuries could have been a lot worse. She remembered a friend who had taken his son back to the dentist four times, trying to repair his top tooth, and suddenly wished they were back in Canada, sitting in a dental office. They hadn’t even looked for a dentist since moving to this new city. She pulled Eliza closer. In moments like these she questioned her decision to leave the security of their home country, with three children to care for.

“No mom, they weren’t.” Micah spoke up, as the doors opened.

Brad and Seth stood directly in front of the doors, waiting to come down and help. Brad’s arms were full of all of the things Danielle had forgotten; a first-aid kit, bandaids, tissue, and two phones. She read the relief in her husband’s face.

“They both fell out at once, Dad,” Eliza grinned, her eyes reaching up to her father’s, but then burst into tears. She ran into his embrace, just as she had her mother’s, burying herself in his broad chest, needing to know they were both there. That they both cared.

That’s right, Danielle remembered. It finally came clear. Eliza and Brad were betting on which of her two top teeth would fall out first. They were baby teeth. Another sigh escaped her lips as she looked at the three little pearls in her hand. But I’m sure it would have been quite some time before two of the three fell out naturally. She must have fallen hard!

Danielle’s eyes locked with her husband’s. She is okay, they wordlessly spoke to each other. They pulled the young girl inside, checked her scrapes and determined, with great relief, that she didn’t need to go to the hospital. Or the dentist.

“Seth explained to me after you left that the scooter had hit Eliza’s back wheel and sent her spilling off of her scooter and to the ground. He said it wasn’t going fast and the man apologized before driving away.”

“Good thing she was wearing her helmet!” exclaimed Danielle, and hugged her daughter again, too relieved to be angry at the careless driver.

“I left so fast, I had no idea what had happened. I just needed to get to my girl, to see if she was alright.” She smiled into the small girl’s teary eyes, her heart flooding with love.

Seth was already pulling an ice-pack out of the freezer when the two parents sat with their daughter on the couch and soon both brothers huddled around.

“Are you okay, Eliza?” they asked tenderly.

Danielle smiled at their compassion, and for a moment, she realized, there was true silence. The drilling had stopped, the school kids were all indoors, the dog was not barking and the neighbour’s rooster had stopped crowing.

Danielle’s family was close to her. Every one of them within arm’s reach. Each caring for the one who had been hurt. They hung around on the couch for a while, talking over what had happened, one getting Eliza a cup of water, another a second ice-pack.

And she was thankful. Thankful for her family, and for the Christmas season. It had been stretching, even exhausting, but it had allowed her an opportunity to serve her friends, and her family.

Danielle would have given all she could to make this moment last; but time could not be brought under her will, and she could only look at the four precious faces that surrounded her and revel in the overpowering love, the overwhelming joy that she felt for them; her family.