the Empathy List #74: No Takebacks

No matter how much we wish it away, the past stays with us.

Hello friend, Liz here.

A few weekends ago, early on a Saturday morning, my husband and I were sleeping late. We could hear the kids chattering above us in the kitchen, happy and presumably full of cereal.

And then we heard a splintering noise and piercing screams.

My husband made it up the stairs before I did, and he’d already scooped my son into his arms and was running to the bathroom, even as he demanded of my daughter, “I need to know exactly what happened.”

She began to weep, peeled off her shirt, and there, a large welt had already begun to form.

The next few moments were spent in dressing wounds, jogging between kids to deliver children's ibuprofen and band aids and Neosporin and ice packs and water bottles.

Eventually, on the drive to urgent care, we reconstructed the events: the kids had decided to make tea. They’d boiled water in the electric kettle. They’d selected a glass carafe—a vintage filagreed cocktail carafe—from the bar cabinet, they’d placed a handful of tea bags in …