I open my eyes and he is standing by the bed, his shoulders drawing back with each breath, his mouth open. In the dark, he reminds me of a fish up on the grassy bank.
“Dad,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I . . . can’t . . . breathe.”
I sit up and sigh. It is 1:45 in the morning. Leo is our fifth child. We have been here before.
First, I draw him close. “Slow down, buddy. Don’t panic.”
Maile stirs beside me and reaches her hand over. “Is he okay?”
“Are you okay?” I ask him. He nods, jerking his chin up and down, but his face gives a different answer.
“Maybe you should take him outside?” Maile asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’ll help.” I look down at Leo. “Let’s get a blanket, okay? The cold will help your breathing.”
He nods again, and soon we are descending the steep steps of this old house. They creak under our feet, and for a split second I wonder how many other parents walked down them at all hours. How many other croupy children. How many other cold nights and weary fathers.
We open the door and the chill shocks us. We sit in the rocking chair and he is warm against my chest. We pull the blanket around us, and there we sit in the silence and the cold and the stars and the porch light. There is no one else. His raspy breaths sound like a death rattle, and I would be frightened if we hadn’t been in this exact space so many times before.
I think of holding Abra and Sam on the back porch in Holtwood, when we lived in the forty-acre wood ten years ago and they were trying to breathe. I think of Lucy in the steaming bathroom in the doublewide in Belmont in 2011. I think of Cade . . . but that was so long ago. He is 19 now. I’m pretty sure he had croup at some point, but I can no longer picture it.
Cade, who has gone off to college, who is at college at this very moment, while I sit on the front porch with Leo. Cade, who no longer lives here. They are 13 years apart, him and Leo, and so much alike that sometimes I think I’ve fallen through a time warp. Here we are, again, waiting.
His breathing slows and his head tilts to the side. We wait as his passages ease open again, the cold infiltrating his lungs and nipping at our feet, our ears. We rock slowly front and back.
Is this the kind of waiting we are encouraged to do during Advent, this quiet sitting, this gentle rocking in the cold, biding our time for something to arrive that is completely out of our control? This counting breaths? This placing of my hand on Leo’s chest to see if the rasping has smoothed?
He is asleep now, his breathing calm, his head leaning to the side. I hold him close for an extra moment there on the front porch, warmed by him, my breath escaping in cloudy bursts, the stars a million million miles away, the neighbors’ houses peaceful, the street lights steady.
What will I do when my own breath grows raspy, at the end of all things? Who will usher me outside into the cold? Who will wrap a blanket around me?
I carry him inside and up the stairs. I make a bed for him on the floor of our room, and I tuck him in, and I climb back under my covers.
Just another night of Advent.
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I saw every moment, heard every sound, felt every breath and chill- then wondered the same. Who will be there for me? But the Lord.
Thank you~
Beautiful, thank you for sharing!