Nearly a year ago, my younger son split his chin open, extending from under his lip to down his neck. Any higher and the laceration could have created a rather heinous facial deformity. Any lower and it could have slit his throat. 17 stitches later, he's fine. It was scary, but he is fine. He has a scar, but he is fine.

He is totally fine.

But I really wasn't for awhile. I kept thinking about the "what-ifs." I admit I am a wimp. Back in grad school, I would have been the voice of reason, trying to calm everyone down. When something like this happened to my child, I went into freak-out mode.

In the end, he didn't lose anything. Sure, he has a funky scar, but it isn't really super-visible because it is tucked under the chin. When he starts to grow facial hair, he's likely to have some baldness there, but by then it will be funny.

Yeah, blood and me aren't really friends.

A few decades ago, when I did the Girl Scout's version of first aid, the only thing that stopped me dead in my tracks was an illustration of a severed hand (or to be more accurate, the arm without the hand) demonstrating proper tourniquet technique.

So.

Yesterday I was at Splig's soccer game. I heard a familiar voice - that of Splig's indoor soccer coach from last spring, dad to both a boy in Splig's class and to a girl in the Cat's grade. I love this family. The mom is one of those super-nice women who is truly genuinely sweet. And the dad is a soccer-loving, race-car loving guy with an awesome accent. Both kids are fabulously nice kids. Excellent! He must be the opposing team's coach!

A few seconds later, I saw a hook. You know, the kind that people have instead of a hand.

Huh, I must have been mistaken. That couldn't be the guy I thought he was.

But then I saw his face. And heard the cool accent again. And of course I recognized his son and some other of Splig's classmates on the team. There was no mistake.

Huh?

I half-watched Splig warming up, and half-watched the opposing team's coach. Am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing?

I'm sure my face could have been rather hilarious on a sitcom. One moment I'm cheering on my son, and the next I have a totally wacky perplexed wide-eyed look like WHAT HAPPENED?

My mind went goofy. Like, am I correct that I remember they were doing a kitchen renovation over the summer? OMG DID HE HAVE A CONSTRUCTION ACCIDENT? Or, have I just been so inattentive that I never noticed that he didn't have a hand before? OMG I AM SUCH A DORK.

I thought about how I know plenty of people with various differences, and it doesn't HIT me in any stupid way like this was.

On one hand (so to speak) I have people that I met after their various "disability," like a guy whose legs were blown off while serving in the military. I met him years after the fact, and so I was never all bizarre about it because that is just who he is - a guy with incredible upper-arm strength who can run faster than me on his artificial legs.

On the other hand I know folks who have had accidents after I first knew them. I suppose I was kind of wonky a bit after a particular friend had an auto crash when we were both teenagers, but it was stupid curiosity, no more. Plus, I was made aware of her accident before I actually saw her in the wheelchair, so I wasn't shocked in any way, except for when I first heard the news. (And yeah, I knew a gal who was killed in the Oakland Hills fire and all that. I've known people who have gone through trauma and I've have had that knot-in-your-stomach reaction to such news, but not directly in front of them.)

So there I am, pleased that Splig is performing well at soccer, but then having that cat-killing curiosity about the opposing team's coach. It isn't like I want confirmation that there was some horrific accident, because that would just make me all blood-scared and freaked out and OMG! I kept flipping from the "just pretend nothing is wrong" to the "but if they had this scary accident, do they want some sort of support?" I mean, I was super-freaked out about a little chin laceration; had we had any sort of hand-severing action in our home, I'd probably be committed.

There's the mom, smiling and calm as always. She hasn't said anything about OMG MY HUSBAND CUT OFF HIS HAND.

But then there is the husband, hook tucked into his pocket. From his body language, it really did seem like a "new" injury. He did a lot of gesturing with his right hand, while purposely keeping the hook in his pocket. He was wearing long sleeves in the 90-degree-plus weather, and definitely seemed aware of how he was positioning his arms.

And I was being a dork. Because I was "noticing" and yet not wanting to be the type of person who would notice.

Many years ago, a colleague started yelling at me, "Did you ask Heather why I have lines on my head! That was totally not fair! You should have asked me!" ... and so forth.

As it had happened, "Heather" and I were talking about the relative attractiveness of various grad students and post-docs in our lab. When we got to that particular colleague, I rolled my eyes and put down his horrendous hairdo. I thought the lines were intentional, until Heather explained that they were actually hair plugs. Oh, okay. So I hadn't really approached her to specifically ask about the lines; rather, they just came up in our conversation.

So now I'm sitting here clueless about this suddenly-no-hand situation, yet knowing that it isn't my place to require any sort of elucidation. It is awkward to randomly ask HEY OMG DUDE OMG WHY DO YOU OMG SUDDENLY OMG NOT HAVE A HAND OMG! because that would not be nice. But on the other hand, staring behind my sunglasses and freaking out inside my head is no more respectful.

I'm pretty sure my curiosity will die its own death in a few days because the shock will have worn off. For now, I keep flashing back to it - OMG HE DOESN'T HAVE A HAND ANYMORE - because of my own convoluted scary-night thoughts about Splig's accident a year ago. And of course, there is that pesky reminder that circumstances can change in our lives in any moment. I'm doing a family ancestry project right now that is particularly pulling on my already-sensitive nostalgia and sense of vulnerability because my mom's mom died exactly when they were both the ages that my mom and I now are. shudder. So yeah, I'm in an interesting place about life cycles and health.

The shock will go down. And so I should stay silent, rather than trying to catch a gossip wave about it.

But for right now, I just have to tell myself to chill. I'm embarrassed, but it comes from a place of concern and familiarity - because had it just been a random guy with a hook-hand, I really wouldn't have given it a second thought.