Archive of Our Own

“Mom, how did you do it?” Harris Drover had spent a lot of time in doctors’ offices and hospitals in his 27 years, but he’d always been the patient. Now sitting with his boyfriend, who was high as a kite on painkillers, Harris was beginning to understand how much it sucked for everyone around him. Hence the call to his mother.

“Oh, honey, when you’re a parent or a partner you don’t think about the ‘how’ you just hunker down and do.”

“I’m going out of my mind here. Troy’s completely out of it. The staff sticks their heads in occasionally. I have no idea whether he’s going to have to have surgery."

“I guess we had an advantage there. We pretty much knew any time you were in the hospital there was going to be a procedure involved.”

That brought Harris up short. He’d been born with a heart condition with a complicated name and a simple problem. His heart didn’t have what it took to sustain his life. Before he left the hospital after his birth he’d had his first open heart surgery to reconstruct his inadequate heart. As a child he had the same surgery every few years because his body kept outgrowing the fix.

And Harris knew that took a toll on his family. His mother and father spent a lot of time with him in hospitals. His parents put significant effort into making sure his older sisters were seen and supported through all this, but like any sibling of a chronically ill child his sisters were a little glass, perhaps more stained than most, but still glass.

Now, Harris sat with his boyfriend (partner? fiancé?) who had suffered an injury in a game against San Francisco. They were awaiting imaging and other test results. As his mother calmly talked him down, Harris had a realization. “I’m so sorry Mom. You guys must have been so scared. This is nothing compared to what you and Dad went through.”