Written April 17th, 2004 but never posted.

Before I tell this story, you should know that my wife and I still sleep in a full-sized bed. Most people I know have upgraded their beds over the years to Queen and then King-sized. But we’ve stuck with a smaller bed. It’s not that we’re more romantic or snugly than other people. We’re just very quiet and still sleepers. We don’t thrash around and wake each other up, so we’ve never felt the need for a larger bed.

We had our first child in 1989, followed by another in 1992, and our last in 1996. For years it was hard to get through a night without someone trying to crawl into bed with us. One of the kids would have a nightmare or be scared or unable to sleep for one reason or another. They would creep into our room and carefully slip into bed with us. If it was early and I wasn’t asleep, I would usually take them back to their own beds and stay with them for a few minutes. But if it was the middle of the night, I was often too sleepy to care and just let them stay with us.

Of course, it’s hard to fit a third person into a full-sized bed, even if it’s a very small person. Over time Jeanene and I developed a technique. We would turn our backs to the center of the bed and scoot over to the edges, leaving a small place between us for the scared kid. Children move around a lot when they sleep, which might bother some people. But I was always soothed by the gentle bumping of my children against my back.

One child in bed with us occasionally was okay with me. I could live with that. I even liked it. But sometimes two or even three of them would show up. One night I remember waking to find all three girls asleep in bed with us, along with our dog, who had sneaked in because the door was left open. There must have been a plague of bad dreams that night, and the three sisters arrived, one-by-one, slithering into the bed and rooting around for an open space. Two of them had managed to squeeze into the place between Jeanene and I. Another was down near the foot of the bed. Arms and legs were sticking out at odd angles. The dog had managed to get under the covers and was all the way down by our feet.

I sighed, got up, and carried them back to their own beds, one-by-one. Rooting the dog out from under the covers was more than I wanted to do, so I just left him there.

That's how it was back in those days. Having an uninterrupted night of sleep was something of a luxury.

A few years passed. Reiley got older and stopped coming to our bed. Shelby did the same. The dog died, so he wasn’t there either. Lillian turned seven and started staying in her own bed. It happened slowly, so I really didn’t notice it. One night I said to Jeanene:

“Hey, have you noticed that no one gets in bed with us anymore?”

“Yeah,” she said, in a somber voice.

“It IS kind of sad though, in a way, isn’t it? I mean, I love not getting waked up in the middle of the night. But still...you know?”

She nodded.

Which brings me to last night. April 16th, 2004. After months and months of no one climbing into our bed, I was awakened to find Lillian in our bedroom. She had a terrible nightmare and wanted to tell me about it. I’m fuzzy on the details, but it had something to do with Super Monkey Ball II, a game we’ve all been enjoying on the Game Cube we gave to the kids last Christmas. The monkeys had been chasing Lillian around the strange world of a Nintendo video game. These monkeys are cute in the game, but I could see how they would be very disturbing in a nightmare.

I held out my arm and she grabbed it. I hauled her over my body and flopped her into the space between Jeanene and me. Jeanene mumbled something and moved over a little. Lillian pawed through the covers like a hamster making a nest in wood shavings until she settled down. Her elbow bumped into me a few times and she ended up with one of her legs pressed against my back. I sighed with pleasure.

Just before I fell asleep a thought crossed my mind. This could be the last time. Lillian is getting older. This may well be the last time a child comes to our bed. I thought back over the years. A series of images flashed through my mind of little girls wearing my t-shirts as nightgowns and climbing over us to find the safest place in the world, the spot between mom and dad.

What if last night, April 16th, 2004 was the last time it will ever happen?

There is always a last time for everything. The common things we do on a regular basis are so familiar to us that we scarcely notice them. But one time - likely a time you will not notice - will be the last time. The last time you make breakfast for your child. The last time you kiss your husband goodnight. The last time you mow the grass at a house you loved. It is a rare thing to notice the last time and get a chance to say goodbye.

That night I said a little prayer:

“If this is the last time, thank you God for all those crazy nights with our little girls.”

Keep your eyes open, mommies and daddies. Watch for those last times. You’ll miss most of them. But if you do catch one, make sure you acknowledge it appropriately.

Update 2009

I found this essay in my writing “junk drawer,” a series of folders on my computer that contain hundreds of partially written essays and stories. I wrote this the day after Lillian came to our bed, having had her Super Monkey Ball nightmare.

But sometimes I wish that I could feel the squirming of a small one in between us in the middle of the night. Sometimes I miss the days when all it took to solve their biggest problems was the closeness of our bodies keeping them safe at night.

rlp