Imagine If…

Elvina Scott

Word Count 639

Imagine If…

Written after reading “Imagine” by Lynn Ungar

I’m not saying it could happen, but imagine just for a moment if one day we woke up and people who needed the most help were regarded as the most important people. Pretend just for a moment that caring for humans, the vulnerable tender skin of babies, the paper thin skin of the old, the bodies that need a spoon to be raised to their mouths, the ones who don’t wake up in the night when they pee and need their bed to be changed and made dry, the ones who need their arms and legs slipped through sleeves and pants, who need the tiny tender moments of a belt clasped, earrings put through lobes, their hair brushed - imagine if you will, waking up and this was the highest status work and everyone wanted to be closer to this vulnerability. 

Everyone wanted to be able to say they took care of someone. Can you imagine it? Pretend if you will, just for a moment, if flapping and noises and jumping and groans and the need to run in circles or hug strangers, if these actions signaled this was a person you wanted to be closer to. What if we leaned towards the six foot tall adolescent boy flapping his hands vigorously in front of his eyes, what if children and adults watched him, maybe even tried it and wondered, tried to imagine how it felt for him. Wondered what he saw and felt from his hands and arms moving. What if this was regarded as an ecstatic dance.

Imagine if you will, that every pocket has a tissue and the drool from the corner of a mouth was met with a worldwide instinct to help, to lean in to that face and administer the smallest gesture, a wipe, a dab, a feeling lucky to be so close, to get to take so specific a measure toward a person’s need. 

What would a world look like where a seizure was leaned into with prayer - Let her come out of this. What if when the clerk fell to the floor in Target, his blond buzz cut blooming with blood from where he clipped his head on the counter, what if while he shook a person called for help, another cleared the space for the movement of his body.

What if no colleague screamed they couldn’t handle this and cried like it was a trauma happening to them. Like he in his seizure was doing something wrong.

What if everyone touched his cheek or pant leg once he was on the gurney, still unconscious but breathing, and said We love you, we got you. What if when he regained consciousness, he knew the whole store had held him, gotten him to safety.

What if the next day in the local paper there was an update. What if people who had been at Target thought about him and were relieved when the paper reported: Family contacted. Stable. What if people had looked for this in the paper because it was normal to report, normal to worry and hope for strangers. 

Imagine I never had to change my 16-year-old daughter’s pull up on a Wegmans Grocery store bathroom floor. Imagine there was infrastructure for adult bodies that need a space for this, a diaper and a person to help.

Imagine when I was struggling it was normal to ask for help.

Imagine never saying you were fine when an undertow of depression had you by the ankles. 

Imagine naps were normal.

Imagine if all the things and ways our bodies needed us to care were seen as the most important thing. 

Because the poets reminded us we are going to die

Because every day alive is alive.

Because days and breaths are a limited resource.

So we protected it, cherished it. Pretend for a moment we loved each other. All of us.

Elvina is a mother, writer, and athlete. She has two children, one of whom is disabled and has intractable epilepsy. This parenting experience informs her writing and advocacy work. Elvina is in the Memoir Incubator at Grubstreet. She is a certified Wild Writing teacher and offers classes in Brave Writing, a generative free write practice. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a graduate of Smith College.