While You Were Sleeping

The things you never saw, my child. If I told you about them, you’d shake your head and maybe laugh a little. The things you will never know, my child, if you knew them you would struggle to reconcile that knowledge with your own set of memories. The things you don’t remember hearing, and will not recall, even under hypnosis or regression therapy. You don’t know it, but they make you who you are.

You never saw me, watching you as you slept, with the soft blind-dampened light winding bent rays around your tousled slightly sweat-dampened hair. You never saw the tears well up in my eyes from the overwhelming sensation of love for you as I saw you on your back with your relaxed fingers flickering occasionally. You never felt my hand, unable to stop itself from wiping the loose fluffy locks from your brow, though slightly afraid that you would wake up. But almost hoping you would, so I could see the wide-eyed searching in your expression as you left a dreamless sleep for a world where everything is as strange as fantasy.

You won’t remember me making up songs, and murmuring them into that soft seashell curl of an ear, your hot red cheeks and the clicking of your lips searching for the teat of an absent bottle. You won’t know about tucked in blankets, forehead kisses, or the awed stroking of your uncalloused feet. And how I repeated words and phrases for you as you smiled, drooling little opaque milk bubbles, in the hope that you would repeat them to me.

You won’t remember any of these things, but they are part of who you are, and part of who I am to you. I have never forgotten those moments, my child. I love you.