As I lay here beside his twelve-year-old body, I note, as I have so many other nights, the deep, even sounds of his breath. He’s laying on his back, arms sprawled out to the side like Christ on the cross. The backside of his hand is actually resting on my cheek and nose. His hand is soft and warm and I close my eyes so I can travel through time… 


With my eyes closed, his hand could be twelve or six, or even two years old. And I enjoy the fantasy of traveling back in time and having had this experience of laying beside a healthy deeply sleeping Alex. I imagine tiny baby Alex laying beside me in bed with his hand on my face. And then the tears come. Because there was never such a night. And for a moment I lose contact with here and now and his sweet hand on my face, and my whole body tenses as the memory replaces the fantasy. His high pitched relentless wail, the way he would arch his whole body 


I wonder how many parents have never even noticed their 12-year old’s breathing as they sleep. What would that be likeEach breath holds me in this sure place where I know all is well now. But I don’t take a single inhale or exhale for granted. As relaxed and grounded as I feel in my body, my mind is always keenly aware of how quickly this might all change. I drink it in, enjoying it while it lasts….


There is a voice in my head that says, “he hasn’t been sick in years. He has been breathing like this regularly. The nightmare is over.” 


I know better. That voice that wants to lure me into the temptation of hope and trust. 


 But while my mind might be able to calculate the days, months and years of good health and stability that he’s seen, my body can access the painful memory of where we came from in just a split second. 


Just the slightest reminder and I am catapulted back in time. My eyebrows stitch together, my forehead throbs, the first sob lurches up in to the base of my throat. I go fetal as the memories of so many nights race through my minds eye like a slideshow that plays too fast and too loud and too big. 


I see him aI can remember as vividly as if it were just last night… what it feels like to count his breaths, to watch his ribs and clavicle from the dim glow of a book light… watching for signs of pulling, listening for sounds of stridor or wheezing. The memories of those countless nights are always right there for me to see like a slideshow moving fast and on a loop. Sometimes I’m on my knees on the wool sisal rug, sometimes I’m actually in his crib with him. Other times I’m on the cold wood floor of my bedroom clawing at my own face tears of rage and terror and exhaustion mixed with snot and saliva as I silent scream. Why won’t my son just breath normally. 

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