Holding on to the warmth

I felt a strong nudging on my back. “Mommy!” Nudge, nudge. “Momma!” My daughter was standing over me crying and scared. It was the middle of the night and she was having a bad dream that our cat had died. And while we have lost a lot of pets, I knew immediately this wasn’t about the cat.

Earlier that day, we learned that a teacher at her school had died suddenly. Details weren’t fully clear but in the early hours, it was seeming like it had been a suicide. There was an eerie oddness in the air and the words “weird” and “sad” and “why” kept being repeated and looped. The morning was punctuated by students clutching each other and crying in the school hallways, teachers breaking down and being unable to carry out their classes, the beloved teachers classroom flooded with flowers, notes, gifts and memories.

My daughter had a lot of questions most of which stemmed from “why and how someone would do this.” I was careful to check in on myself because all of this swirly darkness was not an unfamiliar place for me. “He always looked happy,” she noted. I reminded her that people sometimes struggle under the surface, privately, and it’s not always easy to ask for help. She said I sounded like “the teachers when they give the suicide talk.” I tried to remember if I had been given a “suicide talk” when I was twelve.

I tried to comfort her, rubbing her back, moving her hair out of her eyes, fetching tissues. The tears subsided and she curled into me interlacing her fingers with mine. As we lay forehead-to-forehead, knee-to-knee. I listened as her breathing became softer and slower, her hair slightly damp from her tears. She drifted back to sleep and soon was splayed out across my bed in her usual fashion with the covers wrapped tightly under her toes and legs. The cat had settled in on the other side of me and I lay half asleep pondering it all.

The alarm inserted itself into the still-dark room, and I swatted at my phone begging for more time. My daughter got up, seemingly well rested, and began puttering around. As she stitched together the makings of a breakfast, I reluctantly surrendered to the morning and started to putter too. The waffles popped eagerly out of the toaster. I began to make tea and stood by the kettle as if every moment depended on it. “Come on, water!” I urged. I was tired and my daughter took the opportunity to poke fun of me while spreading the last of the Nutella all over the warm waffles. “You are a monumental cover hog,” I poked back at her. She let out a silly knowing laugh as she started to leave the kitchen to get ready for school.

I sat with my tea in the dim light of the early morning and watched the clouds intensify as the sun came up. It was a dramatic gray sky. Chilly, drizzly. The kind of day my grandmother would have called a “cold and damp in your bones clam chowder day.” I wrapped my hands around the warm mug and pulled in a little more. My daughter floated confidently back into the room and plunked down next to me on the couch. “Thanks for last night, Momma,” she said as she squeezed my hand and kissed me. “Anytime honey,” as I squeezed her hand back. “I’m not going anywhere.”