Monsters

I’m scared, Mommy.

Me too.

“Of what baby? There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“There’s a giant green monster under my bed, and I’m scared he’s going to get me.”

I got the monsters. I own the monsters. Give me a monster any day, and I will crush the monster. Stomp his green monster-y body into smithereens. I’m scared of other monsters, my girl. The ones who can get you at school. Or at the mall. Or when we are filling our car up with gas. Those are the monsters I can’t get. But the one under your bed. Cake, my love. I got this.

I got off her bed, and checked. “There is no silly monster under there. He must have heard about the monster party down the block. He’s gone.”

“Really? Thanks Mommy. You want to look at some stars with me and snuggle?”

“Sure, baby.”

So we laid in her twin-size day bed. Me on the outside, her on the inside, with her Cloud B ladybug resting on my belly. She pressed a couple of buttons and her whole room was filled with blue, make that green, or maybe red, nope, back to blue stars. We chatted about those stars and the moon. And she told me she loved me to the moon and back again.

Just like I tell her every night.

I couldn’t leave her room that night. Usually she procrastinates so Luke and I will stay and she persuades us to fall asleep with her. We gently tell her it’s time to go to bed, kiss her and tell her goodnight. And sometimes she cries for a few minutes until sleep finds her.

But this night — the night of December 14, 2012, hours after a gunman killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT — I couldn’t leave. Because I needed her.

I needed her to know that I loved her and I needed to know that if those were my last moments with her that she would know how much I loved her.

I needed to smell her still damp curly hair, inhale that strawberry shampoo smell. I needed to hold her small hand inside of my own and feel the life inside of those hands. Because what if. What if that was it.

I think about those families all the time. They lost their kids 11 days before Christmas. Did they savor each moment with them on Dec. 13? Or did they do what we all did and rush around, buying gifts for them, cooking dinner for them, making sure their teeth were brushed, bathing them.

I don’t know their pain. I can’t pretend to, and I pray to God every night that he will keep my kids safe. But my heart still aches for them. Their kids were babies, and the thought of those tiny little people, who still had baby teeth, staring into the barrel of a gun, looking into the eyes of a man they knew was going to kill them, makes me feel so sick.

How do we protect our kids? How do we teach them independence and self-sufficiency and keep them safe at the same time? For the four days after the Newtown massacre, I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was afraid to go to church. But I went, sitting in that pew and scoping out exits. I kept my eyes on my daughter who was singing Christmas carols, all the time thinking, if they start shooting, how fast can I get her, Luke and my son, and get out.

I don’t want to live in a world where the mall becomes a dangerous place to be, and schools, meant for learning, are a place of carnage. I can’t even stomach that.

I’m so happy she is only three years old because when I picked her up from school that Friday afternoon, and I was trying so hard to not picture those babies faces in my mind, she was chatting about candy canes and Piper’s new shoes. She was so oblivious to the plight that I couldn’t help but feel grateful. There will be many things I will have to explain to her and and my son.

But not yet.

For now, I will focus on squashing the monsters under her bed.

December 22, 2012