More Than Words

I got my degree in English Literature, so to me words are very important, especially the written word.  All my life words have been the way I have been able to define myself as I try to describe the words around me.  However, this week there we no words available to put into writing the emotions I was feeling.  As I cradled my sick baby I realized some things cannot be experienced thought story or text.  Some things can only be comprehended through experience.  I can try and describe in great detail the fear that continually set on the edge of my mind waiting to be voiced as I switch one cool wash cloth for another.  I could try and describe how you could feel the burn of the fever from the hot sweaty touch of his skin.  I could tell how we stripped him of all clothes and gave him multiple cold baths or how I rocked him for hours allowing him to whimper all the while because of his discomfort, but none of that would be enough.  There are no words to describe the utter inability in which I would be able to make him better.  And words can’t fully describe the feeling of aloneness as you already start fearing for the worst.  Words would do these emotions injustice with such a statement as it was just a high fever and a long night.  But the emotions, the fears, the memory play themselves in my head and heart more than any words could.  So for the first time in my life I can distance words from the “real”: the feeling, the emotion from the “unreal”: the attempt to make a snapshot of a life.