Watch Them Sleep

I watch her sleep in the early light of morning. It is when I see her best. I can look without fear of being seen, without fear of my intense love frightening her or burdening her, knowing I cannot expect her to love me as I love her. She is my child. My job is to keep her safe, to make her strong, independent, ready to live in the world without me. My job is to love her. But for now, she is my little girl. Sweet, smart, funny, kind, intuitive. She smiled at five weeks old, I always say to anyone who will listen, and has been smiling ever since. Now, eight years old, with limbs and organs and a brain that grow even as she sleeps, it’s difficult to imagine she was ever that tiny.

When I stay this still, perched on the side of the bed, with the spring light that came round again, as it does each year, I see the details of her face. Freckles the color of nutmeg scattered over her nose. Buck teeth that will soon be bullied into a straight line of submission, push out her upper lip so that it looks like the bud of a rose. Black lashes splayed on pink cheeks. Honey hued hair tangled and matted. Her small hands, chapped from washing, move in her sleep, searching for what, I cannot say.

I memorize all these details for later. I will take them out to examine whenever I please. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps when I am old and crumpled and hold her baby in my arms.

She moves in her sleep, tossing an arm over her head. My heart seizes with love watching all this innocence. This goodness. This untarnished spirit. Stay this way, I think. Don’t let the years change you.

But I know it is an almost impossible fight. We learn along the way to harden, to protect, to hide. It happens slowly, without our noticing. A cruel remark from a schoolmate on the playground. A shaming in front of the class by an insensitive teacher. A lie told to us by someone we trusted. The souring of a friendship. The boy we love that doesn’t love us. The loss of a loved one. We learn of torture, war, school shootings, murders, rape, racism. The twin towers fell as we watched, helpless. These experiences seep their way into us, little by little, until we’re declared a grown up. A Grown Up in capital letters. Hard. Savvy. Distrusting. Skeptical. Ready for the world, we tell one another.

And I suppose it is necessary, all this hardness and logic and cynicism so that we might venture out into this tough life and come back still intact for dinner.

But knowing all this, I know this too. I want for her to stay soft, to remain trusting even when it’s proven time and again to be unwise, to never give up on love, to be kind even in the presence of cruelty. Fight it, I think. Fight with all your might to stay exactly as you are now, as you were made. Smiling. Sweet. Kind.

This fight to stay soft is my own fight too. To remain hopeful and trusting, to dismiss the cruelty of the past so that I might see clearly the kindness in the now, is an ever present war of my own. To shake off the shaming, the criticism, the lies, and open my arms to love, to beauty, seems impossible in light of all that has come before. But I must. If I don’t, I become like those who hate instead of love. And this cannot happen. Not to me. Not to you.

Watch them sleep, a friend’s mother told us when our girls were naughty toddlers and we were exhausted and depleted. All the sins of the day are forgotten, by both of you, when you watch them sleep. So I did. So I do. And in this watching, I am reminded of my own innocent vulnerability. It’s there, under the hard shell that allows me to remain intact for dinner. It remains. It comes round again like the spring light. How I love this girl is proof, I think now, that I am winning the fight. I turn my face to meet the slant of spring light that beckons from my window and let it warm my cheeks. And so I live to fight another day. For love, always for love.