Help. Anyone. Human in trouble here.
Piroska Toth, a friend indeed.
Looking back, the tremors in my hands must have been physical signs of panic.
Byron’s screams were cries only a being in agonizing pain could muster.
He was barely four months old, and I had taken him to the pediatrician’s office knowing something was wrong.
Very, very, wrong.
As we waited our turn, I attempted to mix formula that I thought might sooth him.
In truth, it gave me something to do, and anything was better than imagining the worst.
But I couldn’t get the cap off the bottle, pour the water nor measure the dry mix without some and then all of it tumbling on us and the floor.
Witnessing this breakdown along with half a dozen other women with children was Piroska, a young woman I’d met three years ago at Lamaze before my daughter and her son were born.
She came toward us with her toddler in tow.
Her eyes held mine as she took the bottle from me and finished the task.
Few if any words were exchanged, but she showed a knowing as if the neon sign that was me read, “Help. Anyone. Human in trouble here.”
Last year I contacted Piroska, and we met for coffee.
I cried and asked if she recalled making the formula.
She didn’t.
But I do because 22 years later it is seared like a counterweight to the fear I felt that day and so many afterwards.
Because she saw and responded to my needs, my memory of the unthinkable news and journey that followed is held by a softness best described as compassion — good old fashioned human kindness.
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