Comfort

There are certain smells that remind me of my childhood and I find comfort in them. Fresh cut grass, crisp spring mornings, chlorine, 7-up. 

There are also certain things I find comfort in and I'm not so sure why. Curling up with a pillow a certain way, a touch on my arm, old songs.

Especially old songs. There are many old songs that I'll hear somewhere that take me back to a time with my dad. A special time. A special memory. Sometimes I don't even have a memory to relate to the song, but I know it's a song that my dad may have sung to me, even though I don't remember him singing it to me, but it evokes a nostalgia in me that I find comfort in. 

When Jillian was in the hospital when she was an infant there were many times that she was inconsolable. When she was going through drug withdrawal. When she was in pain. When she was so sick we thought we were loosing her. There were times that I couldn't find anything to help her, to make her stop crying or moaning. Sometimes I couldn't even hold her depending on what machines she was hooked up to or how sick she was at the time. 

I tried many different things. Touching her, stroking her face, whispering to her, rocking her. Nothing worked. Then one day I sang to her. I sang very softly into her ear "You are my sunshine". And the very first time that I sang it to her, at a time she was going through drug withdrawal and very irritable, she stopped fussing. Her little body relaxed. She seemed to melt into me. The nurse even asked me what I did. Nothing had helped. I just shrugged my shoulders. 

I tried singing that song again and again. And more often than not it soothed her. It comforted her. I would always sing it very softly in her ear. Sometimes I would just hum the melody. And she would relax. Her body seemed to sigh a soft sigh and sink into me. 

The nurses always just assumed that it was because she was with her mommy. But when I would try to soothe her other ways it never seemed to work as well. And the nurses would comment that maybe she was extra cranky that day. But as soon as I would start singing that song she would quiet. And then they would ask me what I did. 

I never told them. Because I wasn't always there with her. I wanted it to be my special "thing" with her. My special way of comforting her since I couldn't take her pain and suffering away. I liked to believe that even if they sang it to her she wouldn't find the same comfort in it that she did with me - but I wasn't willing to risk it so I kept it a secret. I don't think I even told Russ until maybe the end of her hospitilization, or maybe even until we brought her home. I didn't want him singing it to her either. 

Of course there were other things that soothed her at various times, mostly drugs. And I'm sure when I wasn't with her the nurses and her daddy found things to comfort her with. But I wanted that special time with her, that special something that she shared with only her mommy. 

Over the years, especially when she first came home, I would sing that song to her. And it seemed it always relaxed her when I felt like nothing else was working. 

I had not sang that song to her in a long time. A few weeks ago she was being somewhat of a terror. She had been throwing tantrums and I put her to bed. She was whining after a long bout of crying at the top of her lungs. 

I softly started singing that song. Very quietly at first so that she had to be quiet to hear me. She instantly quieted down and stared up at the ceiling. I was singing softly in her ear. She turned to me and put her hand on my cheek. 

The next thing she said startled me. 

"I remember that song mommy"

I said "you do". She said "yes". She said "that song makes me happy when you sing it to me". 

After she closed her eyes and appeared to be falling asleep I stopped singing. She reached up to my cheek with her eyes still closed and said "hum it mommy". So I did. She curled up into me and it felt as if her little body melted into mine. 

She found comfort. And maybe, just maybe, she remembered the comfort she found in my special song to her all those many days in the hospital......a long time ago.