Closing Up for the Night

mes
When I was a young teenager

growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
we had a night time ritual in our home.  It was called “closing up for the night.”  The last one up walked the house checking the stove, turning out lights, tightening the faucet handles, and locking the doors.  Of course, it was usually a parent doing these things.  After my parents divorced, it fell mostly to my mom, but occasionally to me.

One night both mom and I were still awake when it was time to close up for the night.  We each started walking about the house checking the stove, the faucets, and the lights.  We both arrived at the door to the basement at the same time.  I was better positioned, and so I opened the door and looked down the steps.  It was dark.  I quickly closed the door and slid the chain lock into place.  I turned to my mother and said, “Whenever I open that door, I am afraid there will be a stranger standing on the other side.”  My mother said that she, too, experienced the same thoughts and feelings whenever she closed up for the night.

Many years later, as a social worker, I met a mother who was caregiver to an adult son. The son had been a soldier in Vietnam and had returned from his service with both his body and mind significantly altered.  Though it was difficult for her, the mother took the public transportation to visit her son every day.  The mother told me her son had been a happy-go-lucky boy.  He always had a radio playing and a song in his heart.  I asked this mother what it had been like to see her baby boy come home from war in this condition.  “You’ve got to stay prayed up,” she said.

Fast forward another dozen years. I attended a conference in New York City.  Present were Holocaust survivors and individuals who provide services to them.  A woman in the audience shared her family story of survival during World War II.  When circumstances became too dangerous for Jewish people to remain in their homes, this woman’s father arranged for the family to go into hiding on a farm.  One day while the family was hiding, some Nazi soldiers drove onto the farm and spoke with the owners.  Fearing that his family had been discovered or soon would be, the father gathered his family together and said, “We must separate.”

He sent the family members off in pairs giving each pair a specific address where they could hide.  The father said, “This war will end, and when it does, we will all meet again.”  He gave them a location where they should meet when the war was over.  Miraculously, they survived the war.

That night at the basement door, I first learned that being a parent is scary business. More than the talk about the birds and the bees, those brief words at the door explained the significance of having a child.  Over the years, the experiences of other parents confirmed the lesson for me.

After I became a parent myself, I learned first-hand how terrifying it can be.  To love someone who believes in you is holy.  Even the mere thought of being powerless, leaving them unprotected is unbearable.  I have said a lot of prayers in the dark.  It does not get easier as they grow up.  Their problems and the consequences grow larger along with their bodies.  They move away from our houses.  We can’t see the stove, the faucets, the lights, or what’s behind the basement doors in their homes.

Like all of the parents in these stories, it is both because of my children and for them that I am wiser and braver than I might otherwise be.  Though I made many mistakes as parents do, I hope my children learned how to be brave when they are frightened, and how to close up for the night.

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