An Unfair Entry into Adolescence; A Childhood of Trauma

I prep my good mornings to you, Dear Daughters… whenever we are away.

For as long as I can remember.

Be I in the hospital, or you at a sleepover on some innocuous night, I never go to sleep without prepping a “Good morning kiddo! How did you sleep?”

I fire on very few cylinders in the morning, and - as we are rarely far apart - I never want to risk my “not until coffee” functioning (no matter the time or matter of the matter) to prevent from the very thing we were born to do, as parents, ever since you were born:

Worry.

“She’s pinging again,” your Papa likes to say, ever since you were little, when the eldest of you would stick her head in the room and say “hey” with no rhyme or reason. (Even if she’d just done so a mere minute ago.)

I believe this was birthed from an unfair entry into adolescence; a childhood of trauma and feeling uncertain in your standing.

Once you finally had a safe place to land, you couldn’t stop assuring yourself that you really… did.

“Hi,” you’d say, swaying into the room.

And “Ping!” your Papa would joke back.

“Good morning” is a mother’s way of saying “ping” if you’re away and I’m not there to take our goodnight songs or half-assed hugs for granted.

In the hospital, I can be so bleary from medications and 4 AM blood draws and lights-on-all-the-time that I have double vision that’s multiplied, yet even then (especially then) I prep my Morning Ping.

Worry looks like love for those of us who love someone it’s a privilege to worry about, and no matter how brief our time apart or far you really are…

Our close is in the “morning”.

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