have you ever noticed that saints don't sleep? or, they sleep for about three hours a night and spend the rest of the darkness deep in prayer. they do not sleep out of choice, because their burning desire for communion with the Highest is more important than "Brother Ass." they also have near-perfect command over their bodies, so that their physical desires have ceased to have any influence over their actions or wills.
mothers don't sleep, either, but not for these reasons. mothers don't sleep because their babies decide that it's great fun to be awake and enjoying life for four hours in the middle of the night, or because children are throwing up, or because teenagers are late coming home. and being an adult, specifically a mother, means that there is no one else to take care of these things. you are the one being called upon, rather than the child calling out. and the responsibilities with their trials of sleeplessness do not end when the babies start growing up.
i was pondering these things when finn was, in fact, awake for four & half hours the other night, just chatting away, flailing himself awake whenever he started to fall asleep, making all the noises that are so cute and endearing and funny at 2 in the afternoon. funny how the perspective changes, n'est pas? and then i was thinking about saints, how they do not sleep because they are holy. mothers, on the other hand, must become holy because we cannot sleep. through sleeplessness to God!
1 comment:
Ah, Jaime only a mother understands that feeling. I think that God speaks to us in that quiet moment of the night when the little one or the sick child is FINALLY going back to sleep. It is perhaps our little mount carmel, a small sweet moment alone with GOd before we crawl back into bed for the next hour of sleep before we are awakened again. Such is the mysticism of motherhood.
anna ( not ben)
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