Jerked out of sleep by a figure right near her bed. Sam throws her hands up near her face and whoops, trying to get her legs untangled from the sheets. By the time she comes back to the world, Jim...
Jerked out of sleep by a figure right near her bed.
Sam throws her hands up near her face and whoops, trying to get her legs untangled from the sheets. By the time she comes back to the world, Jim is up and around the side of the bed comforting her daughter, unsettled first by a dream, then panicked by Sam’s thrashing.
“I’ve got this one, but she’ll need you in a minute”, he says. Sam counts heartbeats until they slow down and she prepares herself to throw the covers off. The chill from her clammy tshirt is going to make it hard to get back to sleep, but she won’t fully wake up.
Jim’s back and says “Tag you in. My ‘tuck in’ doesn’t count.” Awake from the adrenalin and sleepwalking all at the same time, she shuffles down to Molly’s room.
“Bad dream, Mommy - there were strangers in the house.”
“Nobody’s here, baby. Go to sleep.”
Petulant - “I KNOW, Mom. I was just scared. It happens to everyone”
“What happens, sweetie?”
“Being scared. Daddy said it happens to everyone, whether something’s real or not.”
“That’s right, honey, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“That’s not the same as not being scared.”
‘She’s 6. I had her 6 years ago. I was there. When did she become older than me?’ Sam thought.
“You’re right baby, but you’re brave. Just go to sleep, honey, ok?”
Thank god the exchange took the last of Mol’s energy. Two deep breaths and she was out again.
“What the sweet simmering fuck?” she thought, semi-consciously deciding to pick a fight when she got back to bed, but Jim was unconscious as Molly.
So Jim had gone to the sandbox and came back and Sam was braced for the worst. Sherrie’s Lee had come back and was worthless, drinking away his disability, not even mustering the energy to slap her when she snarled at him to get off the couch and get a job. Sherrie’s assessment - “Fewer black eyes than before, but less money. I’ll get a divorce when he does something stupid enough to get sent upstate.” - was hard to argue with.
Jim came back with all of his boyishness gone. After a welcome back bender, he’d buy a six pack every week during the errands trip he took on Sunday mornings (so she could sleep in) with Molly and it would last him a week. He forgot once and didn’t really notice until Thursday. His pointless sophomoric cruelty was gone, and he was the only person she knew who called Sherrie’s kid brother Otis instead of Fapper. Molly, too young to understand that there was something wrong with Fapps, played happily with him while Sam watched nervously. Jim was unconcerned, saying only, “She’s sweet to him and that’s nice. He won’t hurt her.” when she voiced her fears in the truck on the way back.
“Giddyap, sweetums, front seat of the car in 5.”, and she bounced out of her chair at the breakfast table to get dressed for school. Jim watched her leave like he always did. Like she was a 4 foot rainbow with winning lottery tickets stapled to her.
“Thanks for taking her last night, I was out of it.”
“Yep. She still needs you to tuck her in, tho. No problem - it’ll come with time.”
“Yeah, she’s got her habits.”
“Nope - not just habits. Gotta remember, she was 1 when I left. She doesn’t remember me at all. All of a sudden, she’s 6 and ‘me and mom’ turns into ‘me and mom and this guy’. It’s like when established kids get jealous of the intruder younger sibling, but worse, because I’m not someone she can bully. Also, it was sudden - no 9 months to prepare her for a baby brother or sister….wait, I didn’t mean to bring that up, not starting the argument again. Not where I’m going, hun. But it’s hard for her because she doesn’t have any models for what a “Daddy” is or does. It’ll come.”
Jesus fuck, she thought. You have an actual physical trophy in a box in the attic, which you refused to let me throw out, that reads “Vomit Distance Champion, 2009”. I had to file a next-of-kin OMPF because you wouldn’t talk about it and I cried and cried and cried when I read it, and you came home and started to learn how to play the piano because you remembered that I liked to sing while Dad played. You are perfect and I have gone down a pants size because I am too frightened to eat.
Two real-life examples I can think of. Steve House, American alpinist, took an 80-foot ledge fall on Mount Temple and was evacuated with serious injuries. From an interview with Rock and Ice:...
Two real-life examples I can think of.
Steve House, American alpinist, took an 80-foot ledge fall on Mount Temple and was evacuated with serious injuries.
From an interview with Rock and Ice:
After my accident on Mount Temple in March 2010 I came to terms with the fact that I had not always been a nice person over the years prior. Spend a few hours believing you’ll be dead before sunset and it does something to you.
From his book Beyond the Mountain:
Thoughts swirled in my head during the two-hour wait for the rescue helicopter. Final farewells were spoken, just in case.
I spent eight days in the critical care ward of the sprawling and busy Calgary hospital. A quick but excruciating flight in a medically equipped Learjet, and I upgraded to another, quieter, hospital bed in Bend, Oregon. Eventually, I traded the hospital room for a walker and my own room in the countryside. Cruelly, from my bed, I could see the rocks I once climbed. The pain in my body was strict and unrelenting. I couldn't imagine climbing again. I put on a cheery face for guests, but when alone, I considered my options: return to school, find a job... I was 39 years old, trained as a mountain guide, and every material thing, every meaningful relationship, was tied to climbing. I owed so much. I resolved to settle that balance when I healed.
As I reflect today, two years after this accident, I find that climbing - and the unrelenting drive to push myself, to feel more, to accomplish more, to try harder - is no longer the sole engine of my life.
Brendan O'Byrne, from Sebastian Junger's book War.
O'Byrne grew up in rural Pennsylvania on a property that had a stream running through it and hundreds of acres of woods out back where he and his friends could play war. Once they dug a bunker, another time they rigged a zip line up between trees. Most of those friends wound up joining the Army. When O'Byrne turned fourteen he and his father started fighting a lot, and O'Byrne immediately got into trouble at school. His grades plummeted and he began drinking and smoking pot and getting arrested. His father was a plumber who always kept the family well provided for, but there was tremendous turmoil at home -- a lot of drinking, a lot of physical combat -- and one night things got out of hand and O'Byrne's father shot him twice with a .22 rifle. From his hospital bed, O'Byrne told the police that his father had shot him in self-defense; that way he went to reform school for assault rather than his father going to prison for attempted murder. O'Byrne was sixteen.
A shop teacher named George started counseling him, and O'Byrne spend hours at George's wood shop carving things out of wood and talking. George got him turned around. O'Byrne started playing soccer. He got interested in Buddhism. He started getting good grades. After eight months he moved in with his grandparents and went back to high school. "I changed my whole entire life," O'Byrne told me. "I apologized to all the teachers I ever dissed. I apologized to kids I used to beat up. I apologized to everyone and I made a fucking vow that I was never going to be like that again. People didn't recognize me when I got home."
One afternoon, O'Byrne saw a National Guard recruiter at his high school and signed up...
O'Byrne would up becoming a paratrooper deployed to the most dangerous valley in Afghanistan. The book is really a fantastic read; I'd recommend it, especially if you want to see how war changed him.
Jerked out of sleep by a figure right near her bed.
Sam throws her hands up near her face and whoops, trying to get her legs untangled from the sheets. By the time she comes back to the world, Jim is up and around the side of the bed comforting her daughter, unsettled first by a dream, then panicked by Sam’s thrashing.
“I’ve got this one, but she’ll need you in a minute”, he says. Sam counts heartbeats until they slow down and she prepares herself to throw the covers off. The chill from her clammy tshirt is going to make it hard to get back to sleep, but she won’t fully wake up.
Jim’s back and says “Tag you in. My ‘tuck in’ doesn’t count.” Awake from the adrenalin and sleepwalking all at the same time, she shuffles down to Molly’s room.
“Bad dream, Mommy - there were strangers in the house.”
“Nobody’s here, baby. Go to sleep.”
Petulant - “I KNOW, Mom. I was just scared. It happens to everyone”
“What happens, sweetie?”
“Being scared. Daddy said it happens to everyone, whether something’s real or not.”
“That’s right, honey, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“That’s not the same as not being scared.”
‘She’s 6. I had her 6 years ago. I was there. When did she become older than me?’ Sam thought.
“You’re right baby, but you’re brave. Just go to sleep, honey, ok?”
Thank god the exchange took the last of Mol’s energy. Two deep breaths and she was out again.
“What the sweet simmering fuck?” she thought, semi-consciously deciding to pick a fight when she got back to bed, but Jim was unconscious as Molly.
So Jim had gone to the sandbox and came back and Sam was braced for the worst. Sherrie’s Lee had come back and was worthless, drinking away his disability, not even mustering the energy to slap her when she snarled at him to get off the couch and get a job. Sherrie’s assessment - “Fewer black eyes than before, but less money. I’ll get a divorce when he does something stupid enough to get sent upstate.” - was hard to argue with.
Jim came back with all of his boyishness gone. After a welcome back bender, he’d buy a six pack every week during the errands trip he took on Sunday mornings (so she could sleep in) with Molly and it would last him a week. He forgot once and didn’t really notice until Thursday. His pointless sophomoric cruelty was gone, and he was the only person she knew who called Sherrie’s kid brother Otis instead of Fapper. Molly, too young to understand that there was something wrong with Fapps, played happily with him while Sam watched nervously. Jim was unconcerned, saying only, “She’s sweet to him and that’s nice. He won’t hurt her.” when she voiced her fears in the truck on the way back.
“Giddyap, sweetums, front seat of the car in 5.”, and she bounced out of her chair at the breakfast table to get dressed for school. Jim watched her leave like he always did. Like she was a 4 foot rainbow with winning lottery tickets stapled to her.
“Thanks for taking her last night, I was out of it.”
“Yep. She still needs you to tuck her in, tho. No problem - it’ll come with time.”
“Yeah, she’s got her habits.”
“Nope - not just habits. Gotta remember, she was 1 when I left. She doesn’t remember me at all. All of a sudden, she’s 6 and ‘me and mom’ turns into ‘me and mom and this guy’. It’s like when established kids get jealous of the intruder younger sibling, but worse, because I’m not someone she can bully. Also, it was sudden - no 9 months to prepare her for a baby brother or sister….wait, I didn’t mean to bring that up, not starting the argument again. Not where I’m going, hun. But it’s hard for her because she doesn’t have any models for what a “Daddy” is or does. It’ll come.”
Jesus fuck, she thought. You have an actual physical trophy in a box in the attic, which you refused to let me throw out, that reads “Vomit Distance Champion, 2009”. I had to file a next-of-kin OMPF because you wouldn’t talk about it and I cried and cried and cried when I read it, and you came home and started to learn how to play the piano because you remembered that I liked to sing while Dad played. You are perfect and I have gone down a pants size because I am too frightened to eat.
Off-Topic thread
Two real-life examples I can think of.
Steve House, American alpinist, took an 80-foot ledge fall on Mount Temple and was evacuated with serious injuries.
From an interview with Rock and Ice:
Brendan O'Byrne, from Sebastian Junger's book War.
O'Byrne would up becoming a paratrooper deployed to the most dangerous valley in Afghanistan. The book is really a fantastic read; I'd recommend it, especially if you want to see how war changed him.
I like this one. It almost hits close to home. This is a time we need that watch feature.