Standing Watch

Last night was a close one. One of those nights where all of my inner resources seemed out of reach. One of those nights where the only thought I could seem to conjure was, in the words of the brilliant children's book, 'please, go the f*ck to sleep.'

This is the kind of night many parents know well. My son, barely six months old, crying in my arms. How many times had he woken up? Who knows. I'd long since lost track. My whole body was screaming with irritation; an irritation sourced from an aching longing for the mattress that was seductively close but perpetually out of reach.

My wife and I had been toggling back and forth throughout the long, long night in our increasingly claustrophobic bedroom. This was a place that was supposed to feel like home, like safety, like sanctuary. Instead, it felt like a chamber of endless, tiny tragedies.

All of our efforts had proved futile. No matter what we tried - bouncing, rocking, singing, shushing, patting, pleading, cursing - we could not sooth this tiny, wriggling potentate who ruled over our precious resting hours with a wail as sharp as a steel dagger.

This beautiful, helpless little life that I loved so dearly had reduced me to a fragile facsimile of myself, propped up mostly by desperation, muscle memory, and a rapidly dwindling sense of competence and coherence.

I was, in other words, about to lose my shit.

Then I had a vision.

First, it occurred to my addled mind that a mere few feet of plaster, wood, and insulation was all that separated us from the icy winter stars. And what was a few feet of roofing to this starlight that had traveled thousands of years to reach us? An inconsequential nothing. No barrier at all. The stars were out there, shining as bright as they ever had, and we stood beneath them just as all our ancestors had before us.

The vision came rushing forward then: a lone warrior, perched on a rocky hilltop in the depths of winter beneath a vast, starlit sky. He held the high ground, with clear sightlines in every direction. There was no fire burning. Nothing that could give away his position. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak against the cold. His sword leaned at arm's reach, propped against an ancient waystone.

He was standing watch.

And those he protected - his tribe, his family, his bloodline - were somewhere safe, held in the knowledge of his presence on that hill.

Seeing him, my feelings of desperation, exhaustion, and irritation melted away. Whoever he was, he stood deep in the past. Centuries separated us. Centuries and what should have been an unfathomable well of experience. He was of an older, earlier world. A world marked by toil, conflict, loss, and hardship. By hope, and faith, and love. By a connection to the earth and its seasons. The stars and their guidance. The sun and its life-giving light.

It was a world we humans have tried so insanely and intensely to leave behind in the eras since. We have built entire industries and technologies with the sole aim of sheltering us from everything he and his people once faced without question.

By most measures, we have been wildly successful. We have made a civilization far beyond anything this ancient warrior could have ever dreamed. But despite that outward success, we have little to show for it. We still toil. We still fight. We still lose those we love. We still die.

Perhaps all we've managed to accomplish is to make ourselves strangers to the very world that made us.

So how could I, ensconced in my climate-controlled bedroom, know anything of this warrior's life?

Yet there he was before me, as clear and real as the little life I held in my hands.

His breath fogged the air.

His cloak rustled as he shifted his weight.

The starlight gave shape to his shadow.

Then my son cried in my arms and he turned and looked at me.

And I, standing there in the warm darkness of a late-twentieth century dwelling made by hands other than my own, looked back.

He had my grandfather's eyes, I realized. And there was no surprise in his attention. No fear. Only a warm familiarity.

He gestured to me as if greeting an old friend.

The room around me melted away. I was with him on the hilltop, my son still cradled in my arms. A vast river of stars wheeled above us. We looked up together. Tears welled in my eyes.

He grasped my shoulder. I looked at him again. He nodded then reached out and touched a finger to my son's forehead, whispering an ancient blessing.

I couldn't make out his words but I felt the reverence in them. And knew without knowing how that someone had once spoken the same blessing over him when he was just a child. That he was passing on a piece of our shared heritage. A gift from centuries even further back, from the ancestral source that all three of us had come from.

Then he touched his hand to his heart. The stars glimmered. I lifted one hand to wave to him.

He was gone.

My son didn't sleep much that night. My wife and I continued our dance, bouncing and shushing and cradling, catching what little rest we could as we waited for the hope of dawn. But from that point on, the tiny room didn't seem so dark.

Because I stood differently now. I stood with the knowledge that we were not alone. I stood with my heart open to the immeasurable lifelines that had been woven together across time to bring my son into my arms. I stood with clear sight, my cloak drawn tight against the cold, and the stars shining bright.

I stood watch.

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