Now I Lay Me (Down to Sleep)

I keep waiting (despite my better judgment) for it to get easier, but nighttime is still by far the worst. I spin in circles with eyes wide open, laying there and waiting, waiting for my life to get worse, for the new unthinkable to happen: for Cecilia to die.

They say the chances of SIDS rapidly decrease after age one, as though that magical birthday somehow gives babies a better grip on life. But the truth is that after age one, it’s just not called SIDS anymore. It becomes Sudden Child Death Syndrome. The only difference is not that it doesn’t happen, but that the baby is no longer called an infant. Does that somehow make it better?

What is better? There is no better. There is staring at the ceiling for hours, reliving my last night with Lizzy sick, the hospitals, the funeral, and the burial. There is knowing that Cecilia is only three and a half months old, and I have almost nine more months of the terror of waking up to her being dead. And then after that I have only more terror to come, more waiting for her to die.

You don’t need to tell me this isn’t a healthy way to live or to perceive the life of my newborn. And when the sun is up, I believe you. But with twilight comes the renewed realization that the truth remains that I have no guarantee of keeping Cecilia, and I may lose her like I lost Lizzy. No one can bring Lizzy back, and no one can make this better for me. There isn’t a way for you to convince me not to be afraid. Because even though the worst has already happened, the only thing worse than losing a child is losing two children. So don’t sit here and tell me not to be afraid. I will be afraid for the rest of my life.

This is how the 18th-century prayer reads: “Now I lay me down to sleep/ I pray the Lord my soul to keep/ If I should die before I wake/ I pray the Lord my soul to take.” I have been saying this prayer for as long as I can remember. I learned it as a child. We teach this prayer to children.

And why? Probably for the same reason we tell them fairy tales. Not the “happy ending” type of fairy tales: the original, horrifying, traumatic versions of fairy tales. The ones about death and murder and loss. Because that’s the structure of reality. And I guess the logic goes that the sooner they learn about it, the less they will be shocked by reality. So we once told children stories about people dying or grieving in terrible ways, and we taught them prayers like “Now I Lay Me.”

And still we say this prayer causally, as though nightly stating the imminent reality of death will somehow bolster us against it. But does it? Who has that answer? All I know is that this prayer, taught to children, speaks the truth. Sleep, when you think about it, is a terrifying thing. We lose all consciousness nightly, for hours at a time, and we have no guarantee that when we wake from it, we will still be alive. During this time, we dream dreams about different versions of ourselves, our lives, and the people, places, and things around us. Sleep science is still largely unexplored and the answers about why we need sleep and what it does to our bodies are still mysterious.

What we do know is that if you lose enough sleep, you will get sick. If you stop sleeping entirely, you will die from lack of sleep. We also know that both children and the elderly can sometimes go to sleep and never wake up. Dying in your sleep is supposed to be a blessing, a peaceful death, and maybe it is. Who has those answers? But I know it’s not peaceful to those who lose the loved one. Peace, I’m starting to learn, is this amorphous buzzword that people throw around, either promising it in some vague evanescent future or worse, deluding themselves into thinking they’ve somehow found it.

I will never find “peace” about Lizzy’s death. I can never reconcile to her not being here. I can never accept that it “had to happen” or “would have happened anyway.” And the reason why is because no person and none of my books can give me an adequate, logical answer. Because death is the one thing that gets to break all of the rules. Death has ultimate power. It gets to be precisely as illogical, irrational, and incomprehensible as it wants to, and no one gets to say a damn thing in response. Because babies and old people keep dying in their sleep; young, strong, and vital adults can still die when a bullet hits their brain, heart, or lungs, and vibrant toddlers, thrumming with life, can be dead from disease in five days or less.

This is the structure of reality. Death is everywhere and is all the time. We do not get to control this. And we have no answers about why we live or why we die. Like children, we throw ourselves blithely unknowing into each day, deluding ourselves that we have some sort of control over anything or anyone. Control only up until death taps us on the shoulder, saying, “Nice try, sweetheart.” And then it’s over, and we’re shattered and naked and alone.

When Lizzy was one, she received a praying lamb stuffed animal for Christmas from her cousins. She loved clapping this lamb’s hands together because when she did, its cheeks would light up, and a child’s recording would recite the prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep /I pray the Lord my soul to keep/ May angels watch me through the night/ and wake me with the morning light.”

Assuming she lives, I don’t know which version of the prayer I plan on teaching Cecilia. Maybe because of Lizzy, Cecilia doesn’t need a nightly reminder that death is around every corner and that her life could be over at any time. Maybe the fact that she never got to meet her older sister will adequately drive that point home. Maybe the thought of angels protecting her in the darkness will offer some comfort to her. I know I want to lessen the burden of Lizzy’s death on Cecilia’s life as much as possible. So when and where I can, I suppose should take whatever grace or comfort is offered.

But as for myself, I continue to face each night knowing that I might not survive it, knowing that Cecilia might not survive it, and remembering what it was like to sleep next to Lizzy while she was dying and I didn’t know it. There are many things that people say and many ways that they want to offer you solace or hope, but at the bottom of every wish is the bone-deep knowledge that I am right, and we have no answers and no control, and that when the sun sets and night blankets us with fear, there is only the running and the sobbing and finally, the broken resting in the knowledge that for some things, we can never forgive ourselves.