A Story of a Superhero

Here's the story of how I first realized I had superpowers. And where I got them from.

Picture little me, five or so years old (precocious, but with a bowl cut and a thick layer of baby fat that betrays me) playing in my backyard. The sort of rudderless, flexible exploration little kids do when the world is new to them. I see my own son doing this daily in our yard, and it's a sight to behold.

Keeping an eye on me, in the same way I now do for my boy, is my mother, washing dishes in the kitchen and looking out through the bank window as I wander from garden to swing set and back again. So, when I run into the house, panicked and calling her name, her hands are already dried.

In the course of my exploration I fell on an old plank of wood, probably from a discarded garden project, a railing or post for a planter. I'm not really sure, but in my memory I've picked up a splinter the size of an unsharpened no.2 pencil. I'm supporting my injured hand (the right one) with my other, and screaming to my mother that my life is over. Even though I had no idea that I would become a piano player (I think at the time I wanted to be a firefighter, ghostbuster, and major league shortstop) I knew very well how important hands were, and there was no way I was getting through life with a shard of exposed wood in one of them. Mom might as well bury me under the swing set.

"Calm down, Bob," she said. Mom only called me 'Bob' when I was getting on her nerves, so this worked a little bit. I squelched the hysterical tears for a moment or so. "Let me get the tweezers and I'll pull it right out. It's just a little splinter."

This broke open the water works again. It was bad enough that I had a tree trunk growing out of my second favorite hand, now she wanted to stick a sharpened pair of metal sticks in there to yank it out. Hysteria!

Mom looked at me, grimacing in thought, then spun around to the cabinet and pulled down a small bottle and cup. Depite the incredible stress of the moment, I realized there how much she loved me and how well cared for I was. "Look," she said, "Drink this and go lie down, we'll figure something out, okay?"

Unable to speak through my copious tears, I nodded and drank the little cup of pink liquid she offered. Then, still bawling, I staggered back to my lower portion of the bunkbed in the room I shared with my sister, and almost immediately fell asleep. Right before I passed out, I had a vision, seeing myself from a distance, my injured hand throbbing in waves of red and orange light.

When I woke, an hour or so later, I immediately looked down at the palm of my hand to find, other than a small red mark, there was nothing there. Had it all been a dream? No, the mark was definitely there. But there was no pain, and no sign of the enormous splinter anywhere.

I checked the bed, pulling the blanket and covers down onto the green shag carpet. Nothing.

Bewildered, but almost delirious with excitement, I ran to tell my mother the amazing news. She examined my hand, noting as I had that there was still a small mark. And then she said the most amazing thing, something I've never forgotten to this day. "You know what I think happened?" she said. "Everybody has an immune system that protects them from illness and infection." I should mention my mother was just beginning her nursing career at this time. She ended up becoming a CCRN, and the most trusted of these that Pomerado Hospital was blessed to have. "Your immune system must be so strong that it dissolved the splinter. Your white blood cells must be super strong."

Now, remember I was five years old, and had just suffered a traumatic health terror, and on top of that, I'd just woken from a Benadryl induced stupor. It never, never occured to me (until, I'm embarrassed to admit, a couple of years ago) that my mother in her kindness had drugged me and pulled the splinter out while I slept. It just never crossed my mind. I took the "super human immunity" argument hook, line and sinker.

I'm not going to say that this event had a huge effect on the rest of my life. But I will say I've never feared getting sick, including now with the current disasters going on. I've never had to go to the hospital for any reason in my decades of life. And people have remarked that I am a pretty quick healer, from broken fingers and toes to simply beating back the flu overnight. I've always, in the back of my mind, taken the splinter event as the origin story of my incredible immunity. I guess I have Mom to thank for that, she gave me my super powers, after all.

Happy Mother's Day to the most clever, caring, and compassionate mother I could have asked for. I love you, Mom!