toenail

It was on one sizzling hot summer day, as if the heat would melt down the road.

My seven-year-old son kept on pestering me to go to the cool fountains in the park.

Thinking that I had to wait in the heat with a towel, for him to have fun in the water, I couldn’t even consider about going.

But of course, my child would never give up.

“Okay… okay… Fine. Let’s go.”

Having a smile ear to ear, my son was full of joy and kept on humming.

When we arrived at the park, seeing him enjoying the cool water, I also felt refreshed and I thought I made the right choice.

“Ouch!”

Checking one of my text messages, I heard a shrieking sound. My son was sitting on the bare ground and crying. When I went close to him, I noticed his toe was bleeding. While I was looking away from him, playing with his shoes off, his toe got stuck in one of the fountains. And trying to get his toe out, his toenail fell off.

I carried him on my back and ran to the ER.

For that small moment, my toes felt so painful as if my own toes were cut off. I was also so anxious. He took an X-ray examination on his toe to make sure he didn’t break any bones.

Fortunately, there weren’t any bones broken. The doctor took off the piece of flesh narrowly hanging on to his toe, and put on some ointment after disinfecting the wound. Though it hurt, my son couldn’t possible cry because he was nervously glancing on me, because he knew he refused to listen to his mother who told him not to take his shoes off.

‘That little toe dressed in a bandage…

How painful would it be?

Oh, I told him to listen to his mother.

No, I had to watch him every single moment….’

I regretted and felt guilty at the same time.

‘This is mother’s heart. Even if there’s a small scar on her child’s body, it is heart-rending.

Seeing just a little toe falling off from his feet really hurts me. I realized how anxious Heavenly Mother must have been seeing her loving children waiting to be sent to this land of death.

It was a natural thing for us to go through for our sins, but our Heavenly Mother sheds tears even today, considering Herself as a sinner.’

Coming back to our house, seeing my child sleeping on my back after being all exhausted from being frightened, I shed tears thinking about our Heavenly Mother.
Though I let Her worry even in Heaven, I still don’t seem to fully repent and always leave a scar on Her heart.

Seeing my foolish self, I couldn’t possibly forget how sorry I was.

I promised myself to change.

Without forgetting Her words that “We must be born again with a flawless faith,” I want to obey all Her words, to become a daughter who can give smiles to Her instead of scars.