Most events in this family’s life revolved around their grandmother and her illness. She had heart problem, so upsetting her was out of the question. When the children were born, Grandma was always by their side; she lived with them. They did not know any other reality—one without her or her ailments. She was their father’s mother. They were very close. The kids loved her dearly and would often stay alone with her while their parents went to work. She was an expert at knitting and embroidery. She was originally from Warsaw and a lifetime of difficult wartime experiences behind her.
Every fall, as usual, Grandma had a scheduled hospital visit, supposedly for just a few days. The children were used to this rhythm: her frequent medical exams, the medications she took. This was their “normal”—she always returned after these procedures and hospital stays.
That morning before leaving for the hospital, she did her hair in curlers, put on makeup, and left. The children remember her exactly as she looked that day, just as she always did: elegant, proud, standing tall. But she never returned from that hospital visit. Instead, her brand-new slippers—bought specifically for the “occasion”—came back. Someone wore them later on because they were, after all, new; why let them go to waste? And suddenly, there was emptiness in the family’s life—the first loss these children had ever experienced, unexplained, emptiness. She was there—and now she was not. What does it mean for someone to “not be” anymore? What could this state of “non-being” mean to children under the age of ten? That she would never come back? That she was somewhere, but just out of sight or invisible?
The parents, immensely saddened, didn’t speak about Grandma. So much happened in silence, as if someone had erased her from their lives with a rubber eraser. The pain was too big. They were processing it in their own way. The children, though, didn’t really understand this “change”—each of them felt guilty, as if it was something they had done wrong because they saw their parents in quiet sadness, lost in silence.
Within three months, one of the children came down with a serious case of meningitis, while the other suffered acute food poisoning (with vomiting and headaches—meningitis was also suspected), resulting in a hospital stay. Perhaps, deep down, one child hoped to see Grandma there, knowing she’d last gone to this very place, having mentioned it as she left.
The children wanted to be seen and needed love. Paradoxically, during their illness, they received heaps of attention—their parents accompanied them to every check-up, everywhere, asking, “How are you feeling today?” In this way, they drew their parents back into life and slowly, bit by bit, back to normal.
Our brain—the body’s powerhouse and information processing center—is also the control center. It’s linked to control over one’s own life and, in a way, the life of the entire family, which Grandma in a way had. Now, the question arises of how life will settle, how everyone will find balance once more.
We know that children up to around nine years of age often take over their parents’ stress while facing their own internal conficts. Meningitis often involves weakness, an inability to confront overwhelming outside pressure. There are more and more thoughts in the head until they overwhelm the brain. We hide from ourselves and others, feeling trapped with emotions that no one talks about. Lack of love can also emerge, especially when parents are grieving and children feel pushed aside. Meningitis reveals a deep inner weakness that touches the core of existence—for both children and parents.
The disease threatens the brain—the control center—which is why it’s necessary to decide to live and take life into one’s own hands, releasing inner strength. And children helped in making that choice.
(Original text)
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