Bad Dreams and Bad Guys
By Julene Snyder
In the dream, I was just running out the door for a minute. She'll be fine,
I thought. I'll be back before she wakes up. I don't know where my husband
was, maybe out of town, maybe already gone to work. Time jumped, and I realized
with horror that I'd left my daughter alone, she was all by herself, scared,
no mommy, no grown-up, and it's a disaster happening, apocalypse right now,
and I had to get back.
There was no way back. Smoke everywhere, fragments bleeding through: screams, sirens, confusion. Have to get to her. Can't. Must. Heart pounding, tears, no one can help. Grief and visions of her alone, my fault, oh God, someone help, there is no escape, no way through the fire to her, she'll be scared, got to get there but everywhere is a dead end, and all that's left is a yawning hole of rubble and hope is just a word I used to know and I wake up and I'm scared. I know it was just a dream, but my body doesn't care; I'm sick to my stomach, off-kilter, shaky, can't focus.
Even now, hours after
waking, I feel fragile, anxious, wishing selfishly that I'd kept my four-year-old
daughter home again today, so I could snuggle her close and breathe her in.
But she loves school, and begged to see her teacher, a lovely Pakistani woman
that she idolizes. So I kissed her good-bye and told her to have a good day
and looked back at her one last time, so serious as she took her place for
circle time, impatient for Mommy to quit hovering, waving 'bye' absently,
her focus wholly on the ensuing drama of who would be chosen today's leader.
So I go on about my
day, trying to ignore the nagging residue of the nightmare, but I can't stay
away from the TV, periodically turning it on again, ingesting some more of
the incomprehensible story and crying on cue when prompted by the details
unfolding, the twin towers that explode and fall over and over, the dazed
fire-fighters, the dust-covered business-people, the sobbing wives and mothers.
I turn it off a dozen times, and turn it back on, hungry for hope, sick with
a mix of fury and fear and worry and sadness.
My girl knows that there
were some bad guys who hurt a lot of people in New York. She didn't ask many
questions, though we've gently talked about it with her several times, telling
her that she's safe and that the bad guys hurt a lot of people on purpose.
We told her they were bullies and that the good guys were working hard on
getting all of the bad guys.
"Too bad the Powerpuff
Girls aren't real," she said thoughtfully. "They always save the world." It
was hard to argue with that: A trio of little girl superheroes would come
in handy right about now. But in their absence, I told her that there were
lots of real-life heroes that were helping people who'd been hurt. Still,
I couldn't help but wonder if I was lying when I said that the good guys would
win in the end and that we wouldn't let the bullies get away with it.
But when I think about
those heroes -- the firefighters running back into the building, the rescue-workers
perched on those precarious piles going about their grim work, the airplane
passengers whose last moments were unthinkably horrifying -- and the ones
whose stories will never be known, I realize that I've got it all wrong. Revenge
and retaliation can't be the way to through this overwhelming grief and sadness.
As a parent, I've got to find a way to let go of my own initial urge to get
even with the bullies, whoever they turn out to be.
Still, my heart aches so. In the night, my little girl woke me when she crawled into our bed, clutching her stuffed dog and sniffling about a bad dream. I soothed her back to sleep, and lay awake, lightly holding her hand. I felt so incredibly lucky to have her there beside me, breathing, warm, safe.
One day, she'll learn
about the events of this week in school. I imagine that the story will sound
only vaguely familiar, like a bad dream that's she long-since forgotten about.
But as far as our own efforts to scrape some meaning from the rubble -- and get through a night's sleep without waking up with a start -- that's another story.
September 13, 2001