BESIDE THE BED ~onezero When my children were young, they would often come into my room to sleep in the big bed with me if they had been awakened by a nightmare or had raised doubts about the imaginary shadows lurking in the depths of their closets in the night. As they grew a bit older, they would show up at my bedside, but I would try to discourage this by telling them that all was well, and that they needed to go back to their own bedrooms to sleep, as they were growing too old to sleep with parents. At times, however, my young son would creep into my room, and not wanting to be sent back to bed, would crouch to his hands and knees, and crawl as silently as possible past the corner of the bed until he would finally just lay down by my side of the mattress on the floor to sleep. For months I got used to expecting the shadowy forms of my kids entering my room during the night to creep beside my bed. Most times, I would wake up and catch my son lying on the floor there, and send him back to bed with a reassuring word or two…. On one muggy August night, I awoke late and sat blinking into the darkness for a moment or two. As I was used to expecting, in moved the shadowy form of my young son. He moved as usual past the corner of my mattress, and then disappeared there. As I knew his routine, I suspected that he had crouched to crawling to move into position on the floor beside my bed. Silence followed and I just lie for a moment, knowing that he would not go back to his room without a gentle reminder from me. I knew I’d have to look over the edge of the mattress to let him know he had been “caught.” I stilled myself for a few moments trying to pick up the sound of him stretching out on the carpet, or possibly his quiet breathing. Following was only the sound of the ceiling fan above the bed, whirring the summer air lazily around the room. Time to make my move. As I usually did, I rolled to my left side, and hung my head over the side of the bed. There was the shadowy form of my young son. “Hey mister, go back to your own bed,” I said in a quiet voice as to not wake my husband who slept soundly beside me. Although the room was draped in shadow, I could see well enough the outline of a little face that lowered in defeat, and his child-like form that crawled the length of the bedside before standing and moving out of my bedroom and on down the hallway to his own room. I turned back over to my back to sleepily gaze at the shadowy fan blades circling above. As I drifted to sleep for the second time that evening, a realization hit me with an electric jolt running the length of my spine. Neither one of my children were home that evening. They were spending the night with their grandparents a few miles away. Inspired by true events: August 2004
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 20:16:27 +0000
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