4Mother and Being Afraid of the Dark

 My Mother

I have always been afraid of being alone in the dark.

As a baby, I was frightened when I was tucked into my crib alone at night. The room would grow quiet, and without my mother there, everything felt uncertain.

I would cry with all my might, begging her to come back and rescue me. I didn’t know anything about time or that she would return. I only knew she was not there. I cried with force. I cried with everything in me. I cried as if my survival depended on it. Because in some way, it did. I was trying to call love back. I was trying to bring her back into the room with the only power I had — my voice.

Looking back now, I don’t see a dramatic child. I see a little girl who believed love could disappear. A little girl who believed she had to fight to bring it back.

If I cried long enough and loud enough, she would come.

My whole body would be shaking from crying so hard. And then she would be there — bringing me water, hugs, and kisses. Bringing me back to safety.

And then she would leave again.

Exhausted from crying, I would eventually fall asleep.

I did not know that the love I was crying for was not actually gone.

It was just outside the room.

And one day, I would discover that it was also inside me. then, something in me was learning:

that love could come…

and love could go.

And in the quiet that followed,

I lay between two worlds—

the comfort of being held,

and the fear of being alone.

Already searching,

already reaching,

for something

that would stay.