A Strange Case of Lock Jaw
As Amber neared the end, the board began to rotate under her feet so she leaped the final distance to safety. As she landed, she grabbed onto the sharp edge of the rusty wheel.
For the past 25 years, my family has had the pleasure to live in a small mountain village in North Carolina, just down the road from an old mill house that’s been converted into a lodge. There, our daughter, Amber, shared many adventures and misadventures with her friend, Isaac, who lived at the lodge where his dad was the caretaker.
When Amber was six-years-old, another friend told Isaac that an eight-foot python reportedly lived under the old, rusty ruins of the mill house wheel, so one sunny afternoon Isaac and Amber went on safari to find it. Isaac led the way, and as was their pattern, Amber did everything she could to keep up with her older and larger friend.
The adventure began as the two of them precariously made their way across a makeshift four-by-four bridge that someone had placed across the stream. As Amber neared the end, the board began to rotate under her feet so she leaped the final distance to safety. As she landed, she grabbed onto the sharp edge of the rusty wheel. She knew immediately that she’d hurt herself, but it became much clearer to her when she looked down at her bleeding hand.
Staring at the blood seeping between her fingers, she suddenly remembered a recent visit to the Health Center where her mother and she had been informed that Amber was past due for a tetanus shot. As with most six-year-olds, Amber was less than thrilled to learn that she needed another shot, so her mother tried to calm her down, explaining to her why the shot was so important and how she could contract Lockjaw if she didn’t get the shot.
“You don’t want your jaw to lock up on you, do you?” her mother asked. Amber had finally agreed to the shot, but in the moment of staring at her injured hand, all she could think about was that cutting her hand on a rusty object would lead to her jaw locking up.
All thoughts of finding the snake flew from her head as she rushed home fighting back the tears. Throwing the door open she screamed, “Mama, Daddy…I love you…I love you!” as the tears gushed forth. It was only later, after the tears had been dried, the hand cleaned and bandaged that she explained why she was in such a hurry to get home.
“I was afraid my jaw was going to lock up, and I wanted to be sure you knew how much I loved you before that happened.”
We learned two valuable lessons that day. Always be careful when explaining complicated matters to young children. If you oversimplify your explanation, it could come back to haunt you. But more importantly, we learned how much our daughter loves us.
