How to Cure a Bloody Nose.

Keith did not look certified enough to have volunteered himself as the official “first aider,” but he was so eager to assist Shurie with her bloody nose that neither of us wanted to stop him. His knees were caked in mud (probably from his tea time adventure climbing the school’s avocado tree) and he was wearing his mother’s high heels.

“When I was a boy,” he began in his high sophisticated voice, that of a child wise beyond his years, “my nose would bleed. I woke up and Mum’s pillow would be red. Then, she would wash it. By night, again, it was red.”

Shurie stood in the hallway, head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle and tissue stuffed up her left nostril as she half listened to his story.

Keith must have caught on, for he moved on to the next stage of his work quickly and with the confidence of a trained professional. He abandoned words and began demonstrating the best way to stop the bleeding. He pinched his nose with one hand, held the other arm out to balance his slender, youthful body, and tapped his feet like he was trying to wiggle ants out of his pants.

Seeing that in all of his efforts Shurie had not budged, he grabbed her free hand and quickly shuffled her to the couch.

“Lay down!”

Shurie complied with all of the sincerity of a mother who willingly eats her child’s cooking, finding the heart to throw in an “Mmm! This is really good, sweetie!” between each bite. Because she was babying a sinus infection, she soon began to sniffle.

“Stop!”
“Keith, I have a cold…”
“Nope! Stop!”

He pulled the bloody tissue from her nostril with grace and disposed of the mess before Shurie had a chance to object.

“If you have a bloody nose,” he sang between whistles, “ooh, ooh! Come to me! I know what to do!”

Had I not known that he was the “first aider” of the house, I would have thought he was choreographing a dance for a talent show. To the taps of his feet, he pinched Shurie’s nose while wiggling his hips and whistling a tune.

When he spotted my bandana on the couch’s arm, he stopped his work.

“Can I use this, Leshel?”

My instinct was to cry “NO” for I couldn’t bare the thought of my newly washed and folded bandana buried in the depths of Shurie’s bloody sinus cavity. Instead, I mustered a calm, “Why?” complete with an inquisitive look, one eyebrow propped.

“To cool Shurie’s nerves!”

He was so serious that he spoke to me with his eyes, which like a puppy’s, wouldn’t let me refuse.

Seconds later, Keith was alternating the taps of his toes with the pinches of Shurie’s nose, using his other hand to pat her forehead with the damp bandana. As she began to complain that he was squeezing all of the snot out of her, he allowed her to dab her wet nose with a tissue.

When she grew impatient, Shurie let out a feeble, “I think it stopped,” with a look of exhaustion and slight irritation.

“I want you to feel this bandana. Is it cool?”
“No.”
“See? Your head is absorbing the water. Your nerves are not cool.”

When Keith came back from rewetting the cloth, he casually stated that Shurie’s nose had grown larger during his healing process. From the look on Shurie’s face, this comment did not bode well. However, neither his comment nor Shurie’s objections discouraged his efforts, and the pinching continued.

As Shurie lay shivering on our faded, dusty, Marker-stained couch, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the seriousness with which Keith “treated” her. Although his legs were dancing and his lips were singing, it was as if they were mere methods of sharpening his concentration, just as the likes of Beethoven and Bach sooth an anxious doctor in the Operating Room before an open heart surgery.

“Where did you learn to be a first aider?” I asked between giggles.

There was no hesitation in his voice, as Keith replied honestly and predictably.

“I read books.”