Stay here

“Mommy, stay here.”  These words rise sweetly and tentatively from a tiny voice as I prepare to depart his room after the bedtime routine has concluded.  We’ve already read “one more story” and sung “one more song,” and it really is time for him to go to sleep.  Not to mention that I inevitably need to clean up the kitchen, fold the laundry, or get my laptop back out to finish up some work.  However, there is something undeniably appealing about being needed, and there is nothing that can compare to the simple and pure way a child needs his mommy.  Either that or I’m a total softie, because he gets me every time.

I just need you to stay here.  I am instantly taken back to my early childhood when I often made the same request of my mother.  I would wake up in the night after a bad dream or during a thunderstorm and rouse that poor woman from her well-earned rest.  I wanted to go back to my bed where it was comfortable and warm, but I needed her to be there, too.  Somehow her very presence brought me such comfort that it could overcome my fears and allow me to drift back to sleep.  The monsters seemed less real, the thunder more distant, as long as she was sitting next to my bed.  My memories of these instances are somewhat hazy at this point, but I do remember one thing very clearly – the way my mother acted.  She never lost patience with me.  She never questioned my fear or made me feel silly for being afraid.  She never complained about being tired or needing sleep.  She sat with me in the dark, talking if I wanted to talk, or completing an investigation of the first floor if I requested to know for sure that no one had broken in.  She was affirming and comforting, and most importantly she was there.

Now that I am a mother myself, one thing has become abundantly clear to me: my mother is a saint.  I learn more and more each day through experiences I have with my son what she really did for me, and I am absolutely floored.  It first hit me during the early weeks when I was up every two hours for feedings and feeling a sense of helplessness that went way beyond sleep deprivation.  I assumed I must be doing something wrong – there was simply no way it was this hard.  Countless women before me couldn’t have done this and survived.  When my mom came to visit for a few days just after my son was born, I remember looking to her pleadingly with tears in my eyes.  She simply smiled knowingly and reassured me, “It gets better.” 

And so she was right.  It continues to get better, and so much harder too.  I know I’m just in the beginning stages, and I will have many more sleepless nights ahead of me.  But I now understand why my mother never reprimanded me for being needy or focused on her own needs.  It didn’t occur to her.  She was my mom, and it was her job to comfort me like no one else could.  There is joy and affirmation in that responsibility, and I love it.  I cannot begin to repay my mom for the ways she cared for me as a child.  Instead, I will live my appreciation by following the example she set with my own family.  I pledge to always be there when my son needs me. To scare away nightmares and cuddle during a storm.  To stock up on nightlights and stuffed animals.  To provide comfort when he’s sick.  To pack lunches and volunteer for room parties.  To help with homework and cheer him on at the game.  And when he requests it, I will happily lie next to him until he falls asleep.  It’s a small price to pay to be someone’s hero.