That’s Life

It is July 5th and the banks are closed, there is no mail service and there is no camp. When did we all become so frum that we started holding two days for July 4th?

While many people celebrate their chagim according to their personal family minhagim, July 4th seems to have many consistencies.  Barbeque, water, flags and some sort of fireworks, live or otherwise, can be found in some combination as part of a typical Independence Day celebration.

There is also the token yahoo who decides to set off fireworks at his own personal July 4th get-together and ends up severely injuring himself.  While I do feel bad for the gentleman who lost a limb this year because he decided to ignore all of the warning labels on his fireworks, one need not wonder that hard as to why the warnings are there in the first place. Or the laws about fireworks that are intended to keep us, uh, safe. There is no method to the madness in this case, as the law makes perfect sense. And if the news reports are correct and charges are brought against this individual as well, well then, so be it.

Many ideas often sound good on paper. You think you’ve planned them out, gone through all of the ideas, and yet when they are put into practice, something goes awry. As a woman who happens to be an operating room nurse said to me last week, even under the best and most planned of circumstances, something can go wrong. Unless you are a prophet, you can’t come up with every scenario.

Camps have rules as well. When parents are told not to send up their children with cell phones, it is for a reason. The point is not to send up two – one to have after the first phone is confiscated. All you have done in that situation is taught your child that the rules don’t apply to you – they are for other people. The point, however, is to stick to the rules and teach your child to do the same. They are often there for a very good reason.

So when we kept our daughter home from camp and did not put her on the bus up to sleep-away camp because she was not yet fever-free for 24 hours, we knew we were doing the right thing. And when she had cleared the 48-hour fever-free mark, we knew she was good to go, only to be even more certain of our plan when we found her a ride up to camp. It meant we did not have to drive her.  It was a sign we were home free.

And everything was fine and everything seemed smooth – that is, until, we got a call from the infirmary.

“I have strep, Mommy,” my daughter said to me about 24 hours after she had finally made it to camp. No way, I said to myself, knowing that she had been feeling better and was totally fever free before she left my sight. “Do you have fever?” I asked her, but she said no – she was otherwise fine. The only symptom she did have was a really bad headache and because she had just been sick the camp did a strep test. Lo and behold, it was positive. They were starting her on antibiotics and she was going to be fine.

About 24 hours later, I got another call from the infirmary. My daughter was letting me know she was returning to her bunk and feeling a lot better. I was very glad to hear that, I told her that I loved her and that she should have a great time. I have no further plans to speak to her again before visiting day.

Rules are rules. Sometimes they are made to be broken, sometimes they make no sense and sometimes they are right on the money. I am happy she is fine, that we stuck to the rules and that we kept her home, even if something happened afterwards. And although one friend recommended I just give her a lot of Tylenol and send her on the bus, I am sure that was just in jest.

MLW