DARKNESS

There is no loneliness like the alone you feel in the deep-dark-quiet of the middle of the night. Time never moves slowly until you are awake during those hours when the world is sleeping, but you-you are so awake. I learned about these hours at a real conscious level when my children were babies. How many nights have I sat in a rocker or a recliner holding a fretful baby? Whether illness or bad dreams, for some reason the little charge in my life is awake and the only comfort they want is to be held in their Mother's arms. Dazed by sleep deprivation, I rock and hold and watch the minutes slowly turn over. Empathy for a child and desperation for sleep crowd my mind and I watch the night pass ever so slowly. It is as if the night will be forever.

There then comes a period in your life when blissful sleep and rest are taken for granted. Oh that precious day when you get a full night's sleep! That rhythm is broken by teenage years. Long nights of waiting for the key to slip into the door, long nights of worry, and long nights of past-due projects, important tests, and late book reports with no book read enter into my life. How many nights with 15 years between oldest and youngest did I spend raising teenagers and staring at the clock in the middle of the night?

Then when you think all should be better and sleep should come, mid-life comes. Nights of tossing and turning, once again staring at the clock and wondering why my eyes will not stay shut. Long nights of counting the hours as they slowly roll over on the clock. Nights of calculating if I go to sleep now how much sleep I will get. Nights of frustration and dismay since sleep will not come.

Just as this passes and you think sleep should come-unrest comes to my life. More long nights of staring at the clock, of looking at the deep-dark of the night with a far away street light providing a glimmer of light. Nights of tall tree shadows as I gaze out the window-nights of silhouetted objects and the deep deep quiet that only comes in those ominous hours of the night. With my mind spinning at a incredible speed all day, the night often brings clarity of thought and recognition of facts that I missed during the mad spinning of my day. Nights when I am nudged awake and led to prayer as the only source of comfort and finally bringing sleep.

The wee hours of the night are a surreal world when you truly feel alone in the universe. Loneliness to a degree that is heart breaking and painful to the deep core of my being. I thank God that the sun comes up and the deep-lonely hours of the night have passed and the sleep I so desperately need have come with the early morning twi-light. There is truly no alone-ness like that which comes in the deep dark hours of the night-no loneliness is ever greater.