Sleep, baby, dear

CW: mental illness, suicide

I’ve been to a lot of therapy, with my kids and solo. Therapists often talk to kids about their “lizard brain,” or the primitive fight or flight we revert to when put under stress that shuts down much of our rational powers. It evolved to keep us safe from saber tooth tigers and shit, but nowadays it mostly gets us into shit because modern stressors require all our rational powers and then some.  

Some of us, with mental illness especially, have a really hard time with the lizard brain hijacking our whole body, and consequences can be tragic. Two years ago yesterday, my son Jonathan was in a coma in the hospital fighting for his life because he accidently killed himself the day before when his body was hijacked by the illness in his mind. Medics brought him back to us for a day and a half, and then we had to say goodbye to him again, two years ago today. I know he didn’t want what happened. It’s a long story, but I know. He wanted to live. He had been hijacked before. He articulated after episodes how he felt like someone else was controlling him and he couldn’t stop. But we had always been able to keep him safe till it passed. Until we couldn’t.

Being 14, Jonathan loved to sleep during the day and read and play games all night. This drawing I created is from a photo I took of him one summer morning less than two months before he died. He often got hot in his room and would come out and curl up on the sofa in the living room and there I would find him in the morning with his hair all akimbo looking utterly at peace in positions I would never find comfortable.

I loved seeing him sleeping then as much as when he was a little baby. He had a terrible time sleeping as a baby because he had food allergies and we didn’t know it. We had a Celtic twilight CD that he would listen to as we rocked him and then held him most of the night because he was so miserable. My favorite lullaby on it was called “I’d rock my own sweet childie to rest.”

It starts:

I’d rock my own sweet childie to rest

In a cradle of gold, on a bough of the willow,

To the sho-heen sho of the wind of the west

And the lull-a-lo of the soft sea billow.

Sleep, baby dear,

Sleep without fear.

Mother is here beside your pillow…

The thought crossed my mind once or twice, when I wasn’t trying to get him up for school, that his lizard brain was sleeping and content with no fear or anxiety to launch him into danger. He was safe. Being awake isn’t safe, nothing safe about it. I’ve daydreamed a lot of my life away rather than take actions that I was anxious about, that could go bad, real bad. But living is better than the dreaming. Every little bit of joy we find in the dust is better than dreams. My kids are my joy. Jonathan brought me so much joy, even though a lot of life was very hard at times. His genuine smile and toffee brown eyes awake and alive were my bread and butter and I wouldn’t have traded them for any money or comfort.

I’m gazing at his picture, and the lizard peacefully sleeping with him, wondering if he could just wake up, what would his 16-year-old self be up to this weekend? His body is sleeping under the giant evergreen, and he won’t wake up. There is no more fear. No more danger. No more Jonathan waking up on the couch. And we are less alive than we were for his loss. Two years closer to being with him again.