Ok, perhaps I'm overstating the degree to which Maddie worries about affliction. If so, definitely not by much.
My daughter has become acutely aware of her desire to abstain from anything that could result in the slightest discomfort, her concern so grave she occasionally turns down candy.
A few years ago, Maddie had an awful tummy ache due to eating more confections than even her father, who has a prodigious and renowned sweet tooth of his own. She eventually vomited. It was explained to her that she just had too much sugar in her stomach. Since that day, she will ask, regardless the dish or drink, whether it has sugar in it. It's really amazing that a small child will ration her own sugar intake, though I suppose the necessity to ward off sickness will have that effect.
About two years ago, we went to visit my maternal grandmother, a caring and generous woman who smoked for the greater part of her life and now breathes with the assistance of an oxygen bottle. On our way home, Maddie asked about the plastic tube that delivered the oxygen to Grandma's nose. I explained that she has trouble breathing on her own and the contraption gives her the oxygen we all need to live.
Maddie is a very thoughtful little girl, much more so than I at that age and far more than I would have expected. When given information, she will ruminate until either she has more questions or has determined her feelings on the matter.
Several days later we were driving down the road — for whatever reason, her epiphanies tend to arrive in the back seat of the Jeep — when I noticed her countenance had turned. I asked what was wrong and she burst into tears. "I don't want to get old and die!"
You can imagine the shock waves from such a pronouncement, the resultant angst of realizing you're about to have a watershed conversation with your 5-year-old. After I talked her down a bit and she was able to articulate herself, I realized the oxygen issue had been weighing on her and she believed breathing trouble was a result of aging. She was now terrified of growing old, which to her seemed inevitably painful and unnatural.
It took some time to console her, but I've found approaching any subject truthfully and straightforward, regardless how touchy, is the quickest path to her understanding and acceptance. I told her Grandma had been somewhat hard on her body with smoking and conveyed to her the idea that, if she takes care of herself and doesn't smoke, she can avoid the same fate. She eventually calmed and hasn't spoken of it since.
Of course, I realize any number of health issues can bring about similar circumstances. But in raising Maddie, I've come to accept I cannot conquer the challenges of youthful understanding in one fell swoop. I must meet each topic as singular, for now; the reconciliation of different and sometimes contradictory scenarios can be had over time.
Maddie's then new-found fear of mortality stemmed from the passing of my step-Dad in January 2006. Maddie was extremely fond of Papu, as she calls him, and his was the first death she experienced. That is a story to be told at a later time. It's safe to say that, while Maddie handled the grief fairly well for someone her tender age, the event had a profound impact on her and was a signature moment from which many new feelings and questions sprang.
Coming back to sickness …
I do find it somewhat strange that Maddie hasn't sworn off spaghetti. One weekend she spent with me about two years ago, when I had returned to college to finish my degree, we had eaten spaghetti for dinner. Our plan was to go over to campus for "Late Nite," a weekly themed event put on mostly for freshmen that invariably includes free bowling.
We had barely hit the road on our way to the lanes when Maddie announced she wasn't feeling well. I hadn't the time to pull over before she filled the floorboard beneath her. I whipped the Jeep around and parked at the apartment just in time for her to get out and evacuate in the grass.
I carried her inside the apartment and up the stairs, where I deposited her in front of the toilet to finish her work. Her last heave exposed the culprit.
I hadn't noticed during dinner that, instead of chewing, Maddie had sucked the noodles down whole. When I looked into the bottom of bowl, there was a nearly perfect mound of spaghetti, as if it had just been taken from the pot and served on a plate.
I was very proud of Maddie that night, though she gives me cause to feel that way almost every moment I'm blessed to spend with her. Not once did she whine or cry; she was a trooper. She had seen the full strands of food and I explained that she must always chew all her food, that her stomach was too small to digest it whole and chewing is part of the process. She has been resolute in that endeavor since.
Maddie and I spent this weekend together.
She told me Friday night about finding a frog skeleton in the schoolyard earlier that day, how she and her day camp friends had poked and prodded and shown it off to one another. I asked if she had touched the remains; she said she had not. I told her to never handle dead animals, that they are breeding grounds for disease and that she could get sick from them. This explanation begat more questions, the answers only inciting more: What's a disease? Bacteria? Etcetera, etcetera.
Saturday night, we were watching Water Horse when the title creature became agitated and growled and snapped at the main character, a young boy. Maddie pointed to the screen and exclaimed, "I think Crusoe has disease!" It wasn't until later, when I was recounting the story to Maddie's Mom and step-Dad, that she told me it had reminded her of Old Yeller. She had remembered watching the classic with me two weeks ago, had recalled the dog turning aggressive and that Travis had to put Yeller down because he was sick. Smart, smart girl.
Earlier Saturday evening, we were once again driving down the road — I was serious earlier — when Maddie asked, "How sick can you get from disease?" I told her it depended on what kind of disease, that some are worse than others. "Well, how sick can you get from frog turned into skeleton disease?"
Maybe, just maybe, she touched it after all.