My daughter wakes up in the middle of the night. She cries for me. I find her lying cold and wet in a tangle of sheets. In the marriage of her night light and the moon, her skin is pale as halloysite. She shivers as I change her pajamas.  Shaking against my hands, my daughter is small and vulnerable. I feel tenderness like a Neruda poem.

My daughter reminds me of Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks. Neruda writes of the mermaid who stumbles into a bar. She has no clothes. The drunks assault her. They burn her body with cigarettes and toss hate like burnt corks. The mermaid, not having language, is silent through the entire assault. She does not shed a tear because tears do not belong to her. After the drunks have finished with her, she exits out the same door she entered. She climbs into the ocean and swims away. Neruda says she is clean as white stone. She swims towards emptiness, towards death. 

I find comfort in Neruda’s poetry. We are all swimming towards death. Even my daughter with new skin, moonlight perfect, unblemished, will die one day. As I put my daughter back into her bed and pull up her covers to meet her chin, I am reminded of her namesake. Last year, my Nana waved a wrinkled hand at death. She and death flirted. He rested a bony hand in hers before losing interest and relenting. I went to see my Nana in the hospital. Hooked up to monitors, she looked so small against the bed rails.  She was as beautiful as my daughter waking up in tears against some foreign night. We are all swimming towards this great empty.

When my daughter wakes up at night and calls for me to comfort her, I swell with love. I am simply overcome with it. I think about Neruda, mermaids, and drunks. Most times, I am comforted. Then, there are times when I get angry. My daughter so small, all of us so vulnerable, the arrogance of corks and cigarettes. At those times, I rage.  I dream of fire. But, even clothed in words, with the burden of my emotions, I am certain the river will wash me clean.

I was standing on a bridge that was wooden and sun-warm in the middle of what appeared to be an innocuous afternoon. There was another woman standing next to me. Our bodies were slung causal against the railing of the bridge. Our feet were firmly planted against the slats. We shared our stories.

I knew she was a mother, although I could not see her children anywhere. Bug, my son, was playing just out of reach of my arms, a mere feet away. I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

Do not climb on the railing. It is not safe.

I thought this before I said it. By the time I was able to release the words from where they sat weighted on my tongue, it was too late.

I started walking calmly towards my son, as I watched him climb the railing of a bridge that held itself high over a river. I just knew that I would reach him. I believed that I had time. Nothing was going to happen to my child.

Last night, I had a dream that I lost my son.

One moment we were standing on a bridge, playful and sure. The next moment I watched him dangling one handed. I fumbled and grasped desperate to save him. I watched my first born child plummet soundless and quick. I saw his tiny body break itself against the glassy surface of the water that only yielded to swallow him whole. One moment I had my whole life beside me, in the next instant it was gone.

I woke up disoriented by my fear and my grief. The silence of the darkened bedroom only unsettled me further.

Where was my son? I needed to get to him quickly.

I groped blindly down the hall, knocking my toe into the laundry basket.  My son’s favorite grey sweatpants and Diego Underoos sat folded and fabric soft clean, reminders of our afternoon spent digging out in the yard. I could not move myself fast enough. I crashed through the nursery door, my breath catching. There he was.

I could see his silhouette in the dim light of the nightlight that cast blue and green stars against the ceiling and walls. When I tucked him safely into his bed, only hours before, his wish had been to go fishing with his Grandpa.  I crept to his bed. He lay in the fetal position, legs tucked near to his chest, arms gently circling. The moonlight ringed a halo around the baby fine blond of his hair. His mouth was hanging open. I leaned in close to smell the lavender bath that clung to his skin, milky and translucent. My boy was all there. I climbed in bed beside him, careful not to wake him, I drew his body next to mine and silently wept.

There has been too much death. A two year old girl died in a daycare. She choked on a carrot she snuck from the bag her teacher had kept hidden in her desk. She chocked on a carrot and died. Her mother was only a few feet away, teaching in a classroom next door. I read about this story, and I tried to tell myself,

This can not happen to me. We childproof all our cabinet doors. We do not let strangers watch our children.

I tell myself this family is not like me. Mistakes were made at this daycare. Someone must have been to blame. I tell myself this blatant lie so I can sleep through the night, and still I do not sleep well.

I asked a good friend what the reason for death. Why does a mother have to lose a child? What sort of God can allow that? She had no answer.

 I want to believe the universe has order. I want to believe that if I can just figure out the mythical equation, I can spare myself this type of trauma. I want to know the secret password that stays the hand of death. Even though, I know there is not one.

A woman lost a child because of a carrot, another mother lost a daughter to addiction, and still another to disease.  Millions of mothers mourn daily the folded sweatpants and clean pairs of Underoos lying in a sliver of moonlight in a hallway outside a bedroom door. These mothers were no different from you or me. They did not make mistakes. They are not to blame. The frightening truth is that we can not always protect ourselves from death and despair. 

Sometimes, we do not make it to the railing on time. Sometimes our hands are too slippery to grip. Sometimes the height is too high, the force of the water too strong.

Sometimes we do our dreaming at night, and nightmares creep into our waking world.

For all those mothers, including this wonderful woman, I know there are no words, but still… I want you to know I am so very sorry.