Crying

I got an email from Jane tonight that Fiona might not call tomrrow and that she might not be able to visit us next weekend.  She has been hospitalized again.  I am not crying so much about that.  I am crying because unwittingly, KC was the catalyst for this round of pain and decompensation. 

Last week he told Fi that we would be going to Disney.  I had not told the kids not to say anything about it. And it isn't something we talk about constantly. I figured if I said "don't talk about Disney" the clandestine nature of that would make it the first things out of their mouths.

 What happened was that Fiona told KC she would like to take a trip to a stadium in the Big City with us and see a professional basketball game.  KC responded with  "that would be fun, maybe we could go after we go to Disney."  To my kids a trip to Disney--a trip to the beach--a trip to see a ball game. They are all fun. I am sure Rob and Chet see the differences, but the littles?  It's all good.  There is the added layer that it had not occured to KC till after the conversation that Fiona was not able to come with us.  His aunt and grandmother are coming.  He just figured in his mind that Fiona was too.

KC admires Fiona immensely. He has no negative history with her. There are no past bad memories like there are between she and Rob.  She is just his beloved elder sister, someone who loves art as much as he does and is fun to be with. I confess that I don't want to do anything that would tarnish that. Fiona needs people who admire her for who she is. So when KC asked me why she couldn't come I wiggled around the question and said that she would still be in school. As homeschoolers we could go in early May but she is in regular school and would have classes.  Kind of lame but acceptable to a seven year old.

Fiona was amazing during the call, and Jane said they had good conversations about it last Wednesday and Thursday.  But by today things had processed differently.  Fiona remembers us telling her we would never go to Disney because K gets airsick. Therefore in her mind we lied to her and her family is moving on without her.  She had 6 incidents of unsafe behaviors in 45 minutes this afternoon and has been hospitalized.

The fact that K and I don't ever remember saying anything remotely like that to Fiona is not really relevent.  It could have been an offhand comment said years ago.  It could have been something someone else said to her and is now being attributed to us.  It could be something she made up.  It doesn't matter.  What does matter is that my daughter feels hurt and betrayed and is in the hospital tonght.

I have told Jane that if Fiona can't come to visit next week that we can go to the Big City to see her if she is out of the hospital.  Jane said I should not feel badly about this as it is always a risk to allow close family contact as there will always be bumps along the way.  This feels more like slamming into a mountain than a bump.