I replay it constantly. How I just needed to pee and heat up his lunch. Five minutes, maybe less.
He was playing with his blocks in the living room, like he always does. I even peeked around the corner before stepping away—he was giggling, stacking a tower. I swear he was fine.
Then I heard the crash.
It wasn’t loud. Just this weird little clink-thud sound. No scream, no cry. That silence? Way worse.
I ran back in, and there he was, sitting still—too still—next to the broken corner of the standing lamp. His left eye was already starting to swell. He looked up at me, confused, blinking hard, one hand clutching his little rattle.
We spent seven hours in emergency. He kept falling asleep on me while they ran tests.
The doctor came in with a somber expression, and that’s when I knew the news wasn’t going to be good. “We’re going to have to monitor him closely,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “There’s some swelling around the optic nerve, and we’ll need to keep an eye on things. It’s too early to say for sure, but there’s a real risk of permanent damage to the eye.”
My heart sank. My little boy. My firstborn. How could this have happened? I had been so careful. I thought I’d checked everything. I never thought a momentary lapse—just stepping away for five minutes—could lead to something like this.
The hours that followed felt like days. I tried to stay calm, to reassure him, but inside, I was a wreck. Every time he looked up at me, his big eyes still confused and tired from the sedation, I couldn’t help but blame myself. I had been the one to leave him alone. I had been the one who thought everything would be fine. But what if that five minutes was the reason his eye might never be the same?
I replayed the incident over and over in my head. The blocks, the lamp, the way he had fallen silent instead of crying. Could I have done something different? Should I have never stepped away?
As the day dragged on, the swelling in his eye only got worse. By the time we got home, I was physically and emotionally drained. I held him close as I rocked him in my arms, wondering if I had failed him as a mother. I couldn’t shake the image of him sitting there, so still, with that sad little look on his face.
For the next few days, we did nothing but go to doctor’s appointments, run tests, and hope that the damage wasn’t permanent. The swelling slowly started to go down, but I couldn’t relax. Every time I saw him reach for something with his left hand or rub his eye, my stomach would tighten. What if it wasn’t enough? What if he lost his sight forever?
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the doctors gave me the answer I had been dreading—and hoping for. The swelling had reduced significantly, and it looked like there wouldn’t be lasting damage after all. His vision was still intact, and with time, the bruising around his eye would fade.
I cried, not out of relief, but from the overwhelming guilt that had been eating me alive for days. I hadn’t been there when I should’ve been. I hadn’t been vigilant enough. I had allowed something to happen that could’ve been prevented. But more than anything, I was grateful. Grateful that my son was going to be okay.
The next few weeks were a blur. We went through the motions of daily life, but every time I looked at my son’s face, I saw the small scar above his eye and the lingering reminder of how close I had come to losing him. I didn’t tell anyone how much it still haunted me. Everyone else seemed relieved—almost as if it were over—but for me, it felt like something I would never be able to forget.
But life, as it always does, had a way of teaching me lessons in the most unexpected ways.
A month later, I was at a playdate with some other moms at the park. My son was running around, playing with the other kids, completely oblivious to the weight of the events that had passed. I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about how close I had come to losing him.
That’s when I saw another mom standing by herself on the other side of the playground. She looked a little distant, like she was lost in thought. I’d seen her at a few other gatherings but never had the chance to really talk to her. Today, she looked like she needed someone to talk to.
I walked over to her, offering a small smile. “Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
She gave me a weak smile in return. “Oh, just fine. You know, the usual,” she said, but there was something in her eyes that made me pause. Something that suggested there was more going on.
I couldn’t help but ask. “Are you okay?”
She hesitated, her eyes darting over to where her daughter was playing with my son. Then she sighed, and after a moment, she spoke.
“I’m… I’m not really sure. My daughter got hurt a few weeks ago,” she started, her voice soft. “We were at home, and I was in the other room. Just for a few minutes. And she… she fell. Hit her head. I wasn’t there to catch her. It was only a few minutes, but…” Her voice broke, and I could see the pain in her eyes. “I’ve been blaming myself ever since. It feels like I failed her.”
I stopped breathing for a moment. Her words hit me harder than I expected. I could feel her pain, her guilt, because it was the exact same thing I had been carrying around for weeks.
“I know exactly how you feel,” I said quietly. “I’ve been there, too. I left my son alone for just five minutes, and something happened. He almost lost his eye.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “It’s hard not to blame yourself, isn’t it?”
She nodded, wiping away a stray tear. “I keep telling myself it was just an accident, but it feels like I could’ve done something to stop it.”
“Maybe you could’ve,” I said, my voice almost a whisper. “But you didn’t. And that doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’re human. We all make mistakes. We’re all just doing the best we can.”
She looked at me, her eyes wide as if she had never considered it that way before. “But how do you live with that? How do you forgive yourself?”
“I think,” I said, my voice trembling slightly, “that we have to forgive ourselves. We have to remember that accidents happen, and that doesn’t make us bad parents. It makes us people who love our kids, who care deeply for them, but who are imperfect just like everyone else.”
Her expression softened, and for the first time, I saw a spark of relief in her eyes. “Maybe I can do that,” she whispered. “Maybe I can forgive myself.”
And just like that, I realized something. In helping her, I had helped myself, too. I had spent weeks wallowing in guilt, convinced that I was the only one who had ever felt like this, that my mistake was bigger than anyone else’s. But I wasn’t alone. And neither was she.
We weren’t perfect, but we were doing our best. And sometimes, that’s all we can do.
In the weeks that followed, I learned to let go of the guilt. Not because I didn’t care about what happened to my son, but because I realized that beating myself up wasn’t going to help anyone. It was going to make things worse. Instead, I focused on being present with him, on being there when he needed me, and on forgiving myself when I made mistakes. Because I would make more, just like everyone else.
But the important part wasn’t avoiding mistakes. It was learning from them. And forgiving myself when I couldn’t prevent them.
So, if you’re out there, feeling like you’ve messed up or made a mistake, know this: you’re not alone. We all make mistakes. We all have those moments where we wish we could go back and change things. But we can’t. All we can do is move forward, learn from it, and be kinder to ourselves in the process.
If this resonates with you, please share it with someone who might need a reminder that we’re all doing our best.
