The lightning raced across the sky just as I was wriggling my almost four-year-old’s pink-flowered jammies onto her pencil-stick-thin little legs.
Then, the thunder cracked it’s giant hands into the sky.
Mama, I’m scared.
Uh-oh. I’m home alone with three kids as my husband travels. I’m trying desperately to coerce them into bed by 8:30pm so that they’ll get up at a decent hour without me having to gently wake them repeatedly in the morning (read: bark loudly at the top of my lungs.)
Mama, hold me. And so I did. I held her in her bed as she lay snuggled up in layers of pink and white blankets, some of which were gifts given when she was born–then wrapping several times around her tiny body.
You’re like a little caterpillar, I joked with her. You’re so snuggled up tomorrow morning I’ll come in and you’ll be a little pink butterfly. This doesn’t comfort her.
Mama, what if the thunder gets me?
Aw, honey, the thunder can’t get you. And mama’s here.
You won’t let it get me?
No, baby. I’m here to protect you.
I am this kid’s world. I am her protector. What if I’m scared, too? I’m not having the best day, you know? What if I’m not really reassuring and she sees right through me? Okay, get it together, you can do this. Comfort, soothe, pray.
She lays on top of me, beside me, rolls back and forth and cries. She is my world, and I am hers in this moment. And I’m frightened that I am not doing everything I’m supposed to be doing for her–not just during the thunderstorm, but in life? I never interviewed for this gig. Maybe I’m underqualified.
I love you baby.
I know, she says, to the moon and back, right?
To the moon and back.
