Daddy's Desk - Apr, 2007 "The Injury"

I can still remember the first kid I saw injured at school…Jerry Gray in kindergarten. Somehow he managed to gouge his eye with a pencil and blood flowed everywhere. Jerry achieved a sort of cult celebrity status within our class after that incident and it never really went away the rest of the year. He rode that scar train as far as it could take him. Now my son Christopher is faced with a similar situation. The incident occurred at approximately 9:25 AM on March 27…now known as Bloody Tuesday in some circles.
The exact details are sketchy, but it appears as though kids were lining up in Miss Michele’s class, getting ready to head to Spanish class. Miss Michele was out that morning and Miss Mimi had stepped in to assist in her absence. My son Christopher, apparently an over-eager Spanish language learner (who knew?), made a mad dash to get in line. While running he stumbled and tripped, and faster than you can say “¡Ay Caramba!”, Christopher tumbled forward and landed head-first on the rounded edge of a bookshelf, cutting open a one inch gash in the center of his forehead. Upon noticing that he was indeed bleeding, Christopher panicked and screamed. Unfortunately, with each scream, the blood flowed faster and faster. Miss Mimi, normally calm under pressure, ran for help. Unable to speak calmly, she motioned to Miss Seana the universally accepted sign-language symbols for “running”, “crashing”, and “exploding head”, in that order. Within seconds the Prince of Peace Preschool Crisis Management mechanisms impressively snapped into action. My wife was summoned from her classroom, and I believe Fr. Fred was placed on standby in case last rites were needed. This was, I’m told, the first serious injury incident in Prince of Peace Preschool history, so all protocol was followed to the letter. Miss Seana and my wife hauled Christopher off to an emergency clinic where he was quickly stitched up. And so ended the most traumatic morning of the school year. There was no blame or need for Congressional hearings. This was an incident that was destined to happen eventually. You put a dozen or so 2-year-olds in a room together and the law of averages will at some point catch up.
Christopher spent the next 3 days in denial. He refused to talk about the incident, and was quick to change the subject anytime he was asked about it. The stitches were removed within the week and the scar has all but healed completely, but Christopher still refuses to revisit that dark day. The next time Christopher returned to school, he arrived like a conquering hero. You’d have thought he was Lazarus or something. He had triumphed over adversity. All the other kids in the class looked at him in a new way. He had become Jerry Gray.
Jerry Gray never really recaptured the glory of the incident. By 1st Grade he was just a normal kid trying to live a normal life. Now it is Christopher’s turn to deal with the pressures of injury fame. How this shapes his life, only time will tell.