Strange Animal

India woke me up last night and asked if she could sleep in bed with me. I’ve got a big bed. A nice, cozy, whipped egg white fluff of a bed, and I love it. And India loves it. And she looked so tiny last night in her big girl bed with her curly hair and giant eyes, that I picked her up and lifted her into my bed. She moved her pillow so that it would be touching mine, and we snuggled in tight together. For a while we were forehead to forehead, breathing in each other’s warmed oxygen, her arm slung across my shoulder, and my hand at her small hip. Then we both flipped over, back to back, and she scrunched herself down a little lower into the small of my back, and we fit together like spoons in the drawer.

“Momma,” she said to me. “Will you keep me safe from the scary noises?”

“Yes,” I said. “I promise.”

A few weeks ago, India and I were crossing a street downtown. We could have been a movie, the two of us: A smiling momma talking with her little girl. A blue, blue, sky. A pink stuffed animal. The two of us holding hands, walking across the street. And then she dropped her teddy. She let go of my hand, swivelled to pick it up and walked into turning traffic and the driver who didn’t see the small person crouched on the road. I yanked her by the hand, pulling her back in time, and looked up to see the driver oblivious to how close she had been to killing my heart, right there, in front of me.

When she was born, when that red faced, black haired baby found her way outside my body and into my arms she left inside me somewhere low, next to my intestines and liver I think, a strange and fierce animal who would rip apart any danger and eat any enemy to keep her child safe. And then a woman driving a car, a girl, hardly a woman, darts past to make it through the light and I am left on the edge of the sidewalk trying not to cry in front of her, looking for a place to sit and collect myself while she, my daughter, dances around and asks for a drink.

I am such a liar. I promise to keep her safe and all I'm really saying is, Good God, I’ve got nothing here. Please. Please.

Have we heard it too many times already, is it useless to say that there was a moment, a clean, smooth moment afterwards, when God slipped into my soul, or I into his, and I saw that same fierce animal prowling around in him? And good God, the restraint, the holy restraint that is practiced every day from consuming us all; and the love, good God, the love that sidles up alongside us and saves us from this car crash of a life.

O daughter. O beloved. O God. O father.