Memory of a moment

I am typing this with one hand. I am better at it than I would have ever imagined.

Last night, while hosting my charming, handsome ex-boyfriend, (you know, the cool one who is a trapeze artist, photographer, sky/scuba diving, documentarian who travels around the world and models when he is down on money) I almost amputated my finger in a hand blender making some homemade ice cream. Blood may or may not have spurted on him. He cannot remember if that stain was there before he arrived at my house.

It isn't too hysterical. My nurse practitioner husband, who looked at it, clearly the blade hit the bone mangled the finger all meaty and bloody and flaps hanging here and there, said, "Do you really want to go to the emergency room on Friday night? It's not like it will fall off any more than it is. I can do just as good of a job here." I passed out straight away onto the kitchen table, then sat, in the charming seductive way that only a trauma victim can, with my head between my legs,and breathing deeply...I let him, with copious amounts of wine, and my ex-boyfriend charming the dickens off of Beezus, perform home surgery. I sat for the painful soaks in Provodine and Saline and fake stitches. I grimaced and cussed.

"Your mama has big cajones." The ex-boyfriend smiled and messed up my hair. He blamed himself for talking to me while dessert-ing. Truly, I am just an idiot. Make no mistake. I put my finger in the hand blender to scrape the lingering bits of fresh berry and accidentally hit the on-button. (Unplug, people. Unplug.) Declaring, "I think I just cut off my finger."

It's really swollen and horrible, but it wasn't the pain or the injury that kept me awake staring at the ceiling last night. It was the cellular memory of how quickly everything can change. An instant to lose a finger. Or a daughter. I remember. I was listening to my belly with Sam's stethoscope, not really thinking anything can be wrong. And then I was terrified. And then I thought, she could be dead. It wasn't a change of reality but of perception. I will never know the moment of my daughter's last heartbeat, but I will always remember the moment when I last thought she could be alive. Last night, I almost lost my finger. Not an exaggeration. It was two seconds away from being gone. I will have permanent scars and nerve damage on my left index finger, but mostly, I will be unchanged. It's just a finger on a non-dominant hand. It's not a daughter. But it reminded me of how quickly life changes.