Thursday, October 11, 2007

thoughts on comfort

Lately I've been thinking about comfort.

Asher has reached the age where he responds differently to me than to other people. Anyone who is around him for any length of time comments on how good he is, how he hardly ever cries. It's true. The kid is like Mary Poppins (practically perfect in every way), and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom. In public, at his grandmother's, at a restaurant, he is always happy. Until we get home. It's like he's been saving it up, waiting until we were alone to tell me how tired he is, how hungry, how overstimulated. Tonight he cried all the way through his bath, changing his clothes, making his bottle. He had smiled for everyone else all day long, and now he was done.

I don't mind. I'm his mom, and he's at home, and this is what home is. It's where you get to be held or rocked when you need it. You don't have to smile at home, you don't have to do or be anything. Everyone needs one place in the world where they can cry when they're tired. Asher's is here, with us, at home.

Comfort. Synonymous with love, really.

A friend told me this week that I needed to spend some time in the woods. I think she's right. The woods have always been a comfort to me. Our house isn't, not for me, not yet, with the spare room full of boxes and no pictures on the walls. But, as Asher reminded me tonight, comfort isn't really in a place. It's in the people who love you. There's nothing profound about what I'm saying, I know, but it's what has been on my mind lately. Comfort, the word and the feeling and the people who create it.

I've been hearing this week about a brother of a friend. He's a sick boy - almost a man, but when you're sick, it doesn't matter - in the hospital without a mom. I think of my parents, how lucky I was, how utterly comfortable our home was. And I think of Asher, crying to be held, crying because he's tired and home, and he finally can. I think of Emily's story, a girl without a mom, always larger than the life she was living. About Elizabeth, alone in a new place, unable to comfort others back home.

I wish you all comfort tonight.

3 comments:

Liz said...

Steph - this post had me tearing up before i saw the last couple lines! How TRUE that is! comfort can be a place, but its not always. And what a beautiful lesson to learn from Asher - home = comfort, a place to cry and need to be rocked. i've done my share of crying this week for sure, but i know what is missing is that sense of home - familiar people with a healing touch in their hugs. tomorrow is saturday, and i get to spend it in the next to best comfort spot (outside of a hug) - in the woods. :)

also - loved the line about asher being like mary poppins - too cute!

Heather said...

David was the same way. But I never thought of it like this. Wow.

Thanks, Steph.

Anonymous said...

That was beautiful. You are right that we all need that safe, comfortable space. Zachary is (and always has been) that way. I am the complaints department, and he's fantastic for everyone else. But that means he feels safe with me. I am giving him what I did not have (although I suspect I had it for two years...)