She can’t fall asleep on her own right now.
I know this is just a phase, the way she works herself into a fit and then can’t calm down.
“I can’t. Calm. Down” she chokes out through strangled sobs.
I lay down next to her and she snuggles in close, chest heaving with tears that fall into the crook of my shoulder.
“You can calm down. I can help you. We’re going to take three deep breaths, okay? Ready? Let’s count them: One, deep breath, two, deep breath, three, deep breath.”
“I’m. Still. Crying.” she tells me, breath hitching as I smooth back her hair.
She is clinging to me desperately, arms wrapped around my neck and I am holding her tightly, putting just the right amount of firm pressure on her little body.
“That’s alright. We can breathe together again. Okay? One, deep breath, two, deep breath, three, deep breath.”
This scene is an echo.
She couldn’t find her breath and I was holding mine watching her turn mottled blue and gray, over and over and over.
Sometimes putting a baby on their mother’s chest helps them to find the rhythm, to breathe easier and keep the alarms from ringing out, but she was so critically ill that I was not allowed to hold her.
A nurse opened up the side of the incubator and I pulled my chair up close. I laid my face sideways next to hers and cupped one of my hands around her entire body, enveloping her from neck to teeny toes and pressing down with just the tiniest amount of pressure.
And then I began to breathe, concentrating slowly on the in and out, the rise and the fall of my chest.
I sang softly to her, a song about breathing, about how grace is all surrounding like air, the lyrics “Come now, come Calvary, come breathe, come breathe on me” hanging over us like a prayer.
I stayed like that for two hours as the rhythm of her breaths matched itself to mine and the alarms went silent.
She is four years old now and I am doing the same, laying here beside her to cover her in my love, reminding her how to breathe.
Eventually she quiets, then stills, this sweet, sleeping beauty on my shoulder.
And I linger here just a little bit longer, holding her as she sleeps because this time, I can.
(This print available here)
