When I was very young, I had a dream that my dad and grandpa were outside my bedroom window fighting skeletons. The dream was so vivid that I can still, some 25+ years later, recall in detail everything from the thin but strong look of the skeleton bones to the color of my bedroom carpet and the way the moon shone into the window.
Ever since that dream, I have had a nervous twitch at night. Even as a high school student, I would be comforted by the sounds of my parents still awake in our home as I fell asleep. (My dad has stress-induced insomnia like I do, so he would often be up very late). It's silly, I know, but hearing the TV or couch shift was the tiny trigger I needed to release my tension and feel safe. My parents were my protectors simply by being there.
Last night as I laid in bed with Little Bug, I realized that I have somehow become the protector. It's me that his hand is seeking out for a single confirmation stroke as he drifts in and out of sleep. I'm the one whose touch can ease his moans. My presence in a room is what he wants and needs when he wakes up scared in the middle of the night after what could have been a truly cracked out dream about skeletons.
Just by being there and being me, I'm protecting him.
That so much responsibility that it humbles me and makes me want to be stronger and smarter and better for him. It makes me feel like a superhero who could totally kick skeleton butt (if they had butts, which they don't).
It makes me feel so lucky to be his mom.
This is so true! I sometimes have this feeling in the middle of the night when I'm cuddling Max back to sleep. It's kind of an awesome responsibility. Though I also wish he didn't need me so much sometimes ... sigh.
ReplyDeleteIt is a strange shift in responsibility that you HAVE to do. It's an awesome job and one that I know you don't take lightly.
ReplyDeleteWell said...the shift is kinda wierd when it hits you but as JoJo says it's one you HAVE to do. amazing.
ReplyDeleteI think about that often too. What an honor it is to be a mom, a protector.
ReplyDeleteSo true. It is a privilege to be the one who is there for my kids. It is hard to take it for granted when I know the privilege might have been someone else's.
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