Memories of Max - A Father's Story

Chapter 7 - Max

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The first happened when we were moving house. We were always extremely conscious of where Max was and what he was doing. You lapse for a second and it can be to your peril.

While moving house I took the child gate away from the stairs while we moved the furniture from upstairs to the van. We placed a mattress across the stairs to stop Max getting through.

I remember hearing a thud, thud, thud as something heavy fell. I couldn’'t understand why the noise kept repeating itself. If Sara had dropped something then there would have just been the single bang as it hit the ground. She screamed and I realised what had happened. We ran to the stairs to find that Max had fallen down a whole flight. He lay still and momentarily there was silence. I felt sick to the stomach. I could not believe what we were witnessing. Was he dead? He then screamed at the top of his voice.

We rushed him to the local hospital. He had badly bruised his ankle but nothing more. I realised halfway through the examination that we were being observed because they suspected us of mistreating our son. I felt so guilty that we had allowed this to happen, but respected the fact that they needed to know if it had been deliberate.

The second time our lives appeared threatened with the loss of Max was at a large warehouse-like furniture store. Sara and I were wandering around different parts of the shop. It was all open plan and Max was running between us both. It was that classic situation where you believe all is under control and that concrete reality suddenly turns to dust. Max left me and said he was going to see Mum. Sara came up to me a couple of minutes later and asked where Max was. Alarm. We quickly scanned the warehouse floor. It had no aisles and Max was nowhere to be found. I could feel the hysteria rising. He can't have gone. This cannot be happening to us. I questioned people near to the door to see if anyone had left with a red-haired child. Max was three years old and knew no better. We had tried to warn him about talking with strangers but he was too young to really understand. We searched and searched. We started to shout for him and became desperate. After five minutes he crawled from inside a carpet roll. He thought it was a great wheeze but soon received a very strong reprimand. We could not believe our luck. He was fine and unharmed and we were overwhelmed with relief.

These are the little things, those incidents which befall many families in the difficult yet rewarding task of having children. We could never foresee what was to follow.

Lest I be too doting a parent, Max could be very difficult and many times had a temper and stubbornness which was very wearing. It served him well later.

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