through the storm
Jan. 7th, 2008 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ella_mennoIt’s over. It’s over, I tell myself firmly, and I try to make my heart resume its normal rhythm through sheer force of will.
This is stupid, pointless fretting, and I know it. The tornados have long since passed; the weather is clear, calm, peaceful. The thunderstorms we were told to expect haven’t even bothered to show up, like they’re ashamed to make an appearance after the raging and grandiose performance the twisters turned in.
It’s over, and now everything is safe. My children, my babies are here, safe, sprawled all over my bedroom floor. Each of them is asleep, and none of their faces are creased in fear anymore. I don’t have to look at them and lie to them, to have them ask me questions with their voices ("is the tornado going to come this way?”) and their eyes (“can you keep me safe?”) that I refuse to answer honestly - because the honest answer is “I don’t know.”
I hate lying to them. I try not to do it – but there are times it is the kindest, the most responsible thing to do. There are times that shielding them from the truth is the best way to love them. There are times, like today, when they need me to look at them and tell them “I will not let anything happen to you. It’s okay for you to be afraid; I will be brave for you. I will keep you safe.”
Because of course these are all pretty lies. Though I would fight, kill, die for them, I cannot protect them from everything. When it comes right down to it, there are precious few things from which I can protect them. I can lead them to shelter, but I cannot change the path of a storm.
And yet, this time, it passed. It passed us by, it left us untouched – physically, at least. When they wake up tomorrow, this will already have passed into the realm of memory. “Remember the time?” they’ll say. “Remember how scared we were?”
“Yes,” I’ll tell them. “I do remember.” I’ll remember all of it for them, and someday, when they’re old enough, I’ll share all of it with them.
But not tonight. Tonight they sleep soundly, gathered around me, and I take this moment to pause and breathe a prayer of thanks, that we’ve made it through yet another storm.
There are times you sit down to write, and there are times you sit down and words just flow through you. The above words were the second kind of writing.
This is stupid, pointless fretting, and I know it. The tornados have long since passed; the weather is clear, calm, peaceful. The thunderstorms we were told to expect haven’t even bothered to show up, like they’re ashamed to make an appearance after the raging and grandiose performance the twisters turned in.
It’s over, and now everything is safe. My children, my babies are here, safe, sprawled all over my bedroom floor. Each of them is asleep, and none of their faces are creased in fear anymore. I don’t have to look at them and lie to them, to have them ask me questions with their voices ("is the tornado going to come this way?”) and their eyes (“can you keep me safe?”) that I refuse to answer honestly - because the honest answer is “I don’t know.”
I hate lying to them. I try not to do it – but there are times it is the kindest, the most responsible thing to do. There are times that shielding them from the truth is the best way to love them. There are times, like today, when they need me to look at them and tell them “I will not let anything happen to you. It’s okay for you to be afraid; I will be brave for you. I will keep you safe.”
Because of course these are all pretty lies. Though I would fight, kill, die for them, I cannot protect them from everything. When it comes right down to it, there are precious few things from which I can protect them. I can lead them to shelter, but I cannot change the path of a storm.
And yet, this time, it passed. It passed us by, it left us untouched – physically, at least. When they wake up tomorrow, this will already have passed into the realm of memory. “Remember the time?” they’ll say. “Remember how scared we were?”
“Yes,” I’ll tell them. “I do remember.” I’ll remember all of it for them, and someday, when they’re old enough, I’ll share all of it with them.
But not tonight. Tonight they sleep soundly, gathered around me, and I take this moment to pause and breathe a prayer of thanks, that we’ve made it through yet another storm.
There are times you sit down to write, and there are times you sit down and words just flow through you. The above words were the second kind of writing.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:31 am (UTC)I'm glad you're all safe!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 02:36 pm (UTC)