If you’ve never had a child stuck in the hospital for any reason, count yourself very, very blessed. Because a hospital for children, especially around the holidays, is just depressing as hell. You walk down to the Starbucks on the ground floor to get a coffee, or over to the cafeteria for some wretchedly bad hospital food, and everywhere you go you see other parents, walking around looking shell-shocked. Especially at night, when the folks there just for day clinic visits are cleared out, and all the other parents you see are there because they, like you, have a child in the hospital.

This morning , when I went upstairs to take a shower in the parent center, I could hear through the wall in the next bathroom over another mother sobbing heartbreakingly in the shower, perhaps letting out all the emotion she has to keep hidden in front of her child, perhaps because her child’s outlook isn’t great. I don’t know, but I felt her pain. Every parent here looks utterly exhausted, we’re all walking around like zombies, dark circles under eyes, shuffling around, trying to remember what life outside these walls feels like. Nobody here cares about awards season or who got nominated for SAGs or Golden Globes. Time stops here.

Casual conversations here are unlike anything you would have under normal circumstances. Earlier today, I talked with a dad whose daughter celebrated her second birthday just last week here at the hospital; she was diagnosed with Hepatoblastoma several months ago. Tonight, while taking a breather down at Starbucks, I had a conversation with a mom whose four-year-old son desperately needs a heart transplant; she’s wrestling with guilt over praying for her son to get a new heart, because she knows that the answer to their prayers will mean grief for another mother. Parents here make eye contact with each other in the cafeteria, in the hallways, on the elevator, and all anyone can do is nod in solidarity: Yes, we’re here, in a children’s hospital, ten days before Christmas, and our kids are sick or hurting, and it just sucks. That nod of acknowledgment just says all there is to say. What else is there? We are, in this moment, united in a community of parenthood none of us wants to be in.

I’ve had to stay at hospitals with my own kids more than I’d like. A few times with my oldest daughter when she was a pre-teen and teen. Several times with Luka, of course, related to his seizure disorder, but those stays, although they involve some procedures he’s not crazy about, are mostly just endlessly boring and consist of spending a lot of time keeping him amused and diverted, because he’s not feeling sick, and it’s hard to be an active 8-year-old kid confined to a hospital for five or six days with electrodes glued to your head. This stay with Neve having this surgery, though, is just emotionally and physically exhausting.

And even so, I know that in the greater scheme of things (yeah, I lose major “good writer” points for that turn of phrase, but forgive me, will you?), however hard this is, there are other parents here who have it so much worse. Kids in ICU, some of whom will never go home again. Kids right down the hall in the oncology ward, fighting for their lives. I see those parents, especially, taking their sick little ones for walks in wagons loaded up with bags and bottles — liquid nutrition, antibiotics, chemotherapy — tiny kiddos, so frail, so fragile. A little girl, perhaps seven or eight, her hair gone from chemo, who had carefully drawn on new eyebrows with a Sharpie marker. How do those parents get through it? You do what you have to do to be there for your child. You wish you could take their pain on yourself and never see them hurting like this. You fear. You hope. You cry. You pray. I am grateful that we are here temporarily, that my child will heal from this pain in a few months and be okay.

Having your child undergo even minor surgery is nerve-wracking. Having your child go through a major surgery like this, with a long rehabilitation afterwards, is just daunting. They put a nerve block in during the surgery (kind of like an epidural, but more specific to the area operated on), which I was absolutely in favor of, having had one myself two years ago when I had my surgery for that pesky pancreatic tumor. It makes those first couple days after surgery better, and so long as Neve’s not moving, between the nerve block, the morphine, and the oxycodone, she’s more or less okay. Uncomfortable, but tolerable.

Except that somehow in the wee hours, sometime after the pain specialist had finally gotten the nerve block to the right level to control the pain, something happened and it shut off. So this morning she was suddenly in terrible pain and it took quite a while to figure out why. This happened shortly after Neve’s dad had come to take over for a while so I could go work on post for Bunker, so right as we were gearing up and figuring out that I really wanted to reopen the edit to tweak some more before we did the final sound mix, I got a text from Neve’s dad letting me know that her pain was through the roof and they’d figured out the nerve block got shut off, and were giving her pain meds to fix it. Then another text later asking me to call Neve, because she was upset; physical therapy had come to do her first session, and she was in so much pain they couldn’t move her leg enough to get her out of bed, much less get her up on crutches. She was frustrated, and hurting, and she wanted her mommy. And I knew her dad was there, and that he would get her through it, but goshalmighty, mother-guilt is a terrible thing. How could I be off working on my film while my daughter was in the hospital and hurting? Wasn’t I the worst mother ever? Yup, I sure felt like it.

And then my three younger guys wanted to come see their sister, and see me, tonight. And I was so emotionally exhausted I just wanted to lie down for a nap, but more than that I wanted — needed — to see them all and hug them and kiss them and cuddle them and smell their hair. They wanted me to come home, of course. They are fine with their stepdad, Mike, but they want their mommy. All I could do was say, I know, I know. I’m sorry. But I have to be here for your sister right now. And if you ever have to be in the hospital, know that I will be there for you then, as I am for her now. Because that’s what mommies do. But still, the guilt when they cry, when they’re clinging to you in a velcro-hug and don’t want to let you go, cuts you to the core. Yes, more guilt, because when you’re raised Catholic that’s your modus operandi, right? Your go-to emotion for anything that’s wrong with anyone in your life. I want it to be okay for everyone, I want to be there for everyone, and there’s never enough of me to go around, it seems.

On the plus side, by the time I got back here, they had things back under control for Neve, pain-wise. Nerve block cranked up, oxycodone on board. She still can’t get up, but at least she was able to visit with a friend, and she’s up on her laptop now, chatting with more friends, so that’s a big improvement over tears and frustration. So long as she doesn’t move, it’s tolerable. When she has to move, not so much. And then tomorrow, physical therapy will show up, and we will have to try again to get her moving through the pain, and I will have to be brave and encouraging and strong for Neve so she can get through it. And I will, of course. Just as Neve pushed aside her own stress and pain tonight to snuggle with each of her siblings, to listen to Veda tell her all about her day at school, to hug Jaxon and tell him how much she misses him, to cuddle Luka and sing softly to him, “Baby don’t you cry, gonna make a pie …”

That’s my girl.

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