An Ode to Screens

Thank you.

Not for teaching her colors,
or numbers,
or the alphabet jingle she sings
with alarming confidence
despite never stepping foot in a classroom.

Not for the developmental milestones
or the educational value.
Certainly not for rhe endless debates about whether you are rotting her brain
and if we as parents should feel ashamed.

Thank you,
to the glowing phone screen,
pulled out in the emergency room.

Thank you for endless colored dots,
connected by a small finger,
line after line,
while hours stretched on in the hospital,
full of the chaos of humanity.

While my husband sat beside her answering questions
neither of us had yet prepared for.

While I was somewhere else
behind a curtain,
surrounded by machines,
sensors,
plastic lines pumping medication and fluid.
Things too grave for the world of a toddler.

There should have been someone to call.
A friend.
A neighbor.
An aunt.

Someone who could have said,
"I'll take her home.
I'll make her dinner.
I'll put her to bed.
You stay."

There wasn't.
So there was you.

Just a simple game,
the safety pin holding together
a seam beginning to split.

Thank you for being there.

For your open availability,
when the basement flooded
and water crept across the concrete floor.
While we hauled boxes,
laundry baskets,
and three lives' worth of nostalgia up the stairs two at a time.

When there was no grandparent nearby,
no neighbor to call,
no extra set of hands.

Just us,
a shop vac,
and a squad of cartoon dogs
keeping the attention of a toddler
long enough for the adults to avert complete disaster.

So thank you, Paw Patrol.

And thank you to the photo app.

For the Saturday afternoon my husband was alone with our daughter
while I went to work.

His only day off but he spent it with a wild toddler who had slept too little,
eaten three bites of yogurt,
and dedicated herself completely
to force feeding the dog.

The dog,
whose patience was running out.

My husband,
whose patience was running out too.

That electronic photo album was opened up,
placed in her little hands
and bought everyone ten minutes.

Ten minutes is not much.
But ten minutes is sometimes the difference
between a story you laugh about later
and a story you tell your therapist.

Thank you for those ten minutes.

Thank you for the assist when Grandma was terrified at her doctor appointment and needed an adult shoulder to cry on.

For the support through the feverish winters when the whole family was deliriously sick.

For the conference calls he could still attend,
balancing his laptop on the kitchen counter, while I cared for my mental health.

And for the moments when one parent is crying in the bathroom
and the other is trying to figure out dinner.

Thank you for stepping into spaces
once occupied by cousins,
aunts,
uncles,
neighbors,
retired grandparents
who lived down the street
instead of three states away.

This is not a love letter.

I know what is missing.

I know a glowing rectangle cannot teach belonging.

Cannot hold a baby.

Cannot bring soup.

Cannot fold laundry.

Cannot look a tired mother in the eye and say,
"You're exhausted, let me take her. You get some rest."

You are not the village.
You are the plywood bridge
we built across the gap where the village used to be.

Temporary.
A little unstable.
Not what anyone would have chosen.
But enough to get us across.

And until the world remembers:

Children were never meant to be raised by two exhausted adults
performing logistical miracles behind closed doors.

Until help is again more consistent than a touchscreen,
until community is something more than a nostalgic story people tell.

Thank you.

Not for being good.
Not for being ideal.
Not for being the answer.

Just for being there
when no one else was.