Trust

One of the greatest feelings in the world is when your child shows you a great truth.

Ya-Ya has been having these horrible nightmares this last week, about stone angels with eyes that watch her. That's freakin creepy. Tonight, while I was tucking her in, she asked me why she's so afraid to be alone. "Alone alone?" I asked, "like lonely with not a friend in the world, or just of being in a place by yourself?" (A key in parenting is to always KNOW what question you are answering. Answering can rapidly become a slippery slope if not handled with oven mits. Besides, being an expert on fear, I wanted to make sure I was dealing with the correct subcategory.) "Just alone by myself. Like in my room." So, I administered my dissertion on the primeval herd instinct and the logic of banding together at night in your cave so that no one should fall prey to a saber-toothed tiger. And since the saber-toothed tigers are extinct, there's nothing to worry about. Fear is healthy, I told her, and it's also controllable. I moved into a discussion about trusting in a higher power and believing in the best possible outcome because when you don't believe in a miracle you shut the door on one. And courage is being afraid but keeping on anyway. WHen you're afraid, I told her, think about Tom Brady or how you felt on Christmas. I am paraphrasing for the sake of brevity, but it really came out of mouth splendidly. The last ting I told her was to trust me, that I would protect her. A few minutes later, the importance of what we talked about settled in. Having someone trust you is an AWESOME responsibility. I stepped onto the deck into the frosty air and I wasn't even afraid of the coyotes or sex offenders or dead boys in mirrors or the girl in The Ring. Ya-Ya had empowered me with her trust, and she reminded me to trust. It's when we isolate ourselves and take the weight of the world for our own burden that we close the door on possibility and open the door to fear. Fear takes up precious space that could be spent having fun and it gives you bad dreams about creepy stone angel eyes. And I like stone angels way too much to risk having bad dreams about them.