Feeling Guilty for Being Sick

If your mother ever made you feel a little guilty for being sick, if she thought you just wanted to stay home from school, chances are that feeling will stick with you for a lifetime. Even now, fifty years later, when my thermometer reads 100 degress, I doubt myself and think I must be faking it somehow. I want it to say 100, I'm glad that it does, because I love that affirmation that I'm staying home from work fair and square, but I still get that old feeling that mom won't believe me. Why in the world was she so committed to sending me to school, anyway? What in the world could she possibly have to do during the day if she wasn't taking care of me?

Nobody takes their temperature as much as I do. Especially when it's real. I could be sick as a dog but I can still find strength to reach for that thermometer and get it to my mouth just for the victorious moment when I read that magic number.Even a 99.6 is good. But I immediately start to second guess myself. Take it again! Are the blankets keeping me too warm? Was it the sip of tea I had an hour ago? Am I cheating somehow? Is the thermometer broken? When I'm not sick, my temperature is usually in the 97.6 range, does that mean now it's equal to one full point higher, a 101? Maybe it's pneumonia. Am I really this sick? Wouldn't mom be worried about my high temperature? Wouldn't she, with a concerned expression, lay her lovely hand gently upon my brow, just once more? Am I hallucinating? Take it again.

Not that it's good, or fun, to be sick. Hours and days go by and you don't even know where you've been. You remember your son and daughter stopping in, bringing sustenance, but it's all a fog. Two days go by and you haven't gone to your mailbox, watched TV, or even thought about your car. You've stumbled to the refrigerator a few times, managed to eat more calories than you should have, and gotten a shower. But how will you ever get it all together to go back to work? Will anyone be mad at you for being sick?

Will they look at you suspiciously? Should you have taken a picture of the thermometer reading, for proof? Chances are the world kept turning, and nobody noticed you were gone. No need to feel guilty. Be glad you're well. Mom always was.