I’ve often heard of people speaking of a “band aid solution”…and when it is said, it is usually with a note of derision.
It’s a bad thing to have a band aid solution…implies that a person is not addressing the issue at its source, and is providing a temporary and inadequate solution.
I’m not so sure this is the only way to see it…
I remember a while ago, I was out shopping with my tribe…and we stopped to pick some things up at Zellers. I walked around the car to help, and after a junior tribe member got out, I grabbed the car door and swung it shut.
It was like it shut in sloooooow motion. I could see junior member tribe’s finger still on the car…right where the door was going to close. I knew it was going to happen…and it was happening too fast to do anything…and for one seemingly endless moment where I was helpless to do anything, I could see that the little fellow’s finger was going to be smashed in the car door because of my actions. I could anticipate it, but I couldn’t stop it.
Well…the car door closed. He screamed. I opened it, held him and rocked him. He cried. I cried. I hated knowing my actions had hurt him. Hated that.
While it very much hurt…it was clear that no bone was broken, the skin wasn’t damaged and there was no blood, and he was moving it enough that I could tell there was no serious injury. Whew.
…but it was red…and I could believe that it hurt.
After a few minutes, we went into Zellers. Junior Tribe Member was still crying and he was still in distress. Duh…he’d had his finger pinched in a car door by someone who is supposed to be taking care of him.
He began asking for a band aid. A band aid.
Yeah, right, like a band aid is going to help a crush injury. Band aids have no inherent pain reducing qualities. Band aids don’t do anything when something has been unnaturally squished. But he wanted a band aid.
I didn’t have a band aid. JTM’s often need band aids, and so along with gum, chapstick, Kleenex, and other essential items that JTM’s often need, I should have a stash of bandaids in my purse…but I didn’t.
His crying wouldn’t stop…and he kept asking for a bandaid.
In desperation, I went to the back of the store to customer services with weeping JTM, and asked somewhat embarrassedly for a band aid. A band aid that wasn’t going to be covering up a wound. A band aid that would be applied to a reddened finger that didn’t need a bandaid.
The customer service person at Zellers, bless her heart, found a band aid in her drawer, and gave it to me. I put it on the finger.
It seemed so silly…this bandaid…it wasn’t going to fix anything.
Except. It. Did.
He stopped crying. He felt better. He enjoyed the rest of the time in the store. It really served an important purpose.
Wasn’t sure if I should laugh and find it funny…or if I should be annoyed that something that didn’t make any sense, worked?
I remembered this story when I came across these lines from
a blog the other day:
My initial thought was to downplay the need for him to seek care for such a meaningless ‘injury.’ But I was also mindful of the hundreds of little “wounds” to his heart, mind and spirit resulting from his past, many of which are all too easy for me to overlook, dismiss or simply ignore. So in that instant I decided to resist my instinct to dismiss and instead rely on the healing power of a simple Band-Aid applied with love by the hands of a father who is learning what it means to become a Band-Aid Dad.
“Here, let me put that on for you. Should we put a little ointment on, too?” I asked.
“Ok, Dad,” he replied as I applied the first aid. “Thanks. That feels much better,” he said with a smile looking directly into my eyes.
“Glad to hear it. You remember – any time you need something, whatever it is, you let me know. That’s what I’m here for. And one more thing – I love you,” I continued.
I am learning that becoming a Band-Aid Dad is a process. It takes practice and it certainly stretches me at times. But the more Band-Aids I apply to my kids’ wounds – both seen and unseen – the more I am convinced that Band-Aids lovingly applied really can heal.
Sometimes, doing something that feels caring and loving and is attentive and doting takes away the pain…it really does. Even if it doesn’t feel like it is logical. Wounded fingers and wounded hearts aren’t often logical. Soothing feels good.
- A husband whose recently had an affair calls home 3 times in an evening he is “out with the guys”…to have her hear the game and the guys in the background…to reassure her that he is where he is. Does it fix anything? Not really…but then again, maybe it does.
- A wife who takes a deep breath, and in the middle of an argument about finances, stops to let her husband know how rich her life is because he is in it. Does it fix the financial stress? Nope. But it does change the way it is perceived and talked about.
I’m no longer skeptical about the power of band aids for children…and I’m believing in them more and more in adults. Sometimes,
- a tense situation,
- an awkward conversation,
- a painful circumstance
- can benefit from a verbal bandaid that will sooth and comfort and nurture and reassure and remind the other that you take their woundings seriously
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