2:29am

May 22, 2026

In the middle of the night my child clings to me and I ache. I ache for him, for me and for the nurture I won’t always be able to provide. I ache for the mothers separated, for the ones who can’t run to their children at the sound of a distressed cry. My foremothers were women like these.

The war movies play in my head as my son tries to sleep. All the research and story I’ve absorbed into my body take their toll. The books and documentaries are haunting, imprinted upon me even as my sweet baby boy clings to me. More of his teeth are coming in and his separation anxiety is growing. His consciousness is evermore present with each passing day. I’m comforted by being needed and yet so scared at the same time. I can’t stop thinking terrible thoughts about man-made cruelty that could take me away from him before nature says it’s time.

I cuddle him, hoping he will dream good dreams. But every time I go to place him in the crib, he wails. It’s an unusual cry. He isn’t normally awake like this.

Motherhood is grief. I grieve stories I don’t yet know and ones I’ve yet to live. I grieve the day I can’t sit in this chair in the dark in the middle of the night and comfort my child. Where all it takes is my body to ease his little mind.

For an hour and a half tonight we go back and forth—my rocking and feeding, him falling asleep, me placing him down, and his heartbreaking tears. But finally, exhausted and worried, I leave the room and let him cry alone. And some minutes later, he slumbers. Perhaps I should have let him self-soothe earlier, and not assume it was me that he needs.

He is calm now. I see him in the monitor and watch his breath. His little chest goes up and down in its nighttime dance. Meanwhile I lay in bed, my nervous system on fire with the many ways I could grieve.