I Put My Daughter to Bed and Wanted to Climb in Beside Her

Dear Delyara, I tucked the blanket around her shoulders, moved the stuffed animal back under her arm, and kissed her forehead the way I always do. She was already half asleep. Warm. Safe. Breathing with that heavy, unguarded trust children still have when they believe the day is over and someone else is keeping watch. And I had this sudden ache to crawl into the bed beside her and let somebody else be the grown-up for one night. I wanted to be the one who gets tucked in. The one whose forehead gets kissed. The one who can fall asleep because somebody stronger is downstairs keeping the world from coming in. Instead I turned off her lamp and went back into the hallway and became myself again. That was the hardest part.