i wanted you to call for me
july 26, 2007

i think it's funny to reflect on the smaller changes in our lives. when i was younger i could not fall asleep without having my body covered in blankets and comforters, even in the summer heat. now i can fall asleep as long as my teeth are clean and my eyes are closed. this is rather convenient because it usually means making my bed in the morning consists solely of getting up out of it. one could take the opportunity to grossly overanalyze my independence from covers as a shedding of insecurities - a more self-reliant me - but at that point we must examine other small changes in my life ... such as the fact that i now sleep with a stuffed animal ... whereas in my childhood, i had none. but don't tell anyone that.

other things, though, don't seem to change much at all over time. here i am now thinking so late at night - all the things you're reading now. normal, healthier, more reasonable people are asleep at this hour, but that is not something that has changed in over 10 years' time. i can still remember being in bed the first time it dawned on me that yes ... i, too, would someday die. i remember hiding under the covers as if they could shield me from my mortality. i remember crying. and i remember imagining hell as a small black pot of boiling water that satan would cook you in for eternity - poking you with his pitchfork to see if his food was ready.

and then there was a night, not too many years after, that was equally as memorable and equally as frightening. i still lived down in the house with the big tree in the yard. maybe i was ten. it was raining, and i was hidden away under my immortality-granting covers.

i don't remember exactly what i was doing, but it was most likely thinking - when your voice came unexpectedly,

"mommy"

you sounded so unsure and so afraid. i looked out my window, half-expecting to see you standing somewhere lost in the streets, soaking wet - but i couldn't find you. a pause, and then again,

"mommy?"

more panic in your voice and i still could not find you. you stopped calling out, but i didn't stop looking. i remember wishing she'd found you sooner, but i also remember wishing you'd go away ... because your cries in the night echoed and made me lonely, too. i wished i'd imagined you.

looking out my window now, i feel i've not changed at all since then. i feel that i've told your story time and again - so that i'll remember what it means. it's not raining tonight. the streets are empty, but the traffic light still changes. and no matter what warm thoughts i think to take me to sleep, i know i'll wake feeling cold in the morning - clutching to a stuffed animal for heat, wishing i'd imagined you. i wish i'd imagined you.