Hi, Anxiety

Lately, I’ve been a cocky mother. It’s true. Anyone who has been following my writing has to agree: I have developed a sense of invincibility regarding my parenting skills. Especially after our incident in the doctor’s office, when I kept my cool and helped Ben meditate while he got stitches, I had been walking around as if I have achieved self-actualized motherhood.

Smack-down began just a few weeks before I moved to California.

While I tucked the boys in to bed one night, Noah asked me a question:

“Mommy,” he asked, “who will take care of Teddy if I die?”

I stood over Noah’s bed, my face frozen. I could feel my hands turn cold and my chest tighten, and I could hear the thousand thoughts that were racing in my head. One track of thoughts struggled to find the right answer—one that would be honest but still protective enough to save my child from the fear of his own mortality. Another track of thoughts flashed back to my own childhood and I remembered how I would lie awake at night ruminating about my own death. In fact, I was about Noah’s age when the nightmares began.

Still another riff of thoughts fused on to the paradox and dilemma of the situation: I knew that I simply could not change the subject: Noah is too stubborn to let go of a topic that easily, and ignoring the fear would not make it go away. Yet I couldn’t bear the thought of talking about death with Noah and I would be damned if I made up stories or reverted to religious legend just to make myself or him feel better.

A final set of thoughts laughed at me cynically: “Yeah you think you’re all that and a bag of chips? Say hello to your son’s festering anxiety. Let’s see your grace under this fire.”

My palms started to sweat; I had absolutely no idea what to say to him.

And so I answered Noah:

“I don’t like talking about death, Noah.”

It was honest, but it wasn’t enough for him. He demanded a better answer. While I could see clearly in my mind’s eye exactly what was going on in front of me, and while I knew exactly what I needed to do and say to walk Noah through this journey, I simply couldn’t muster the words or the courage to say what had to be said. I was paralyzed by my own memories: the times I would wake at night, my heart pounding and my breath shallow, haunted by the images of my sleeping body lying alone in a solitary box, buried under the earth, forever.

But Noah had another question:

“What if I die while you are in California, Mommy?”

I knelt down next to Noah’s bed and looked into his round and deeply troubled eyes. Suddenly I saw my own life and my own childhood anxieties staring back at me. I saw my father, after my tears roused him from his bed, scolding me to “stop thinking about death.” I felt my own pain and frustration at not being able to stop those thoughts. And I saw the beginnings of a personal angst that took me far too long to learn to cope with and embrace. I was terrified that his question was the sign of worse anxiety to come.

“Are you afraid that you are going to die, Noah?” I asked him quietly.

“Yes” he answered as tears welled in his eyes.

I crawled under his blankets with him, put my arms around him, and held him silently in the hopes that he would fall asleep before I said anything. But Noah’s anxiety continued:

“Who will take care of all my stuffed animals when I die?” “What if you and Daddy die?” “What if everyone dies and I am left all alone?”

My mind boggled to find the right response. Certainly, I could not tell him to stop thinking about death; it never worked for me. Like telling me not to think about a white elephant, active thought suppression rarely worked, and when it did it simply elicited more extreme emotions the next time the anxiety came around. And I couldn’t bring myself to telling Noah that no one was going to die when I moved to California, because well, accidents happen, and I didn’t want a possible tragedy to be further marred by well-meaning lies.

And so I told Noah the truth: that I didn’t know what happens when we die and that I knew without question that there would always be someone to take care of him and love him. And then I told him that when I was his age I used to cry myself to sleep thinking about death. I told him that I never want him to be afraid to talk about his fears, and that he should never let someone tell him that what’s scaring him is silly. I told him that he can’t control the thoughts that pop into his head and that even though some of those thoughts are scary they will go away in time. I told him that when he starts to feel his hands and toes tingle, and when he starts to feel like he can’t breathe, he should just close his eyes and try to describe all of those sensations until they go away.

It was way over his head, I knew, and I was disappointed in my own fumbling of this critical conversation. But Noah must have felt a little less burdened after that, because he fell asleep within minutes and didn’t wake until the next morning.

I’m sure that Noah doesn’t have the cognitive awareness to understand most of what I told him. And he doesn’t yet have the presence of mind to be able to stay mindful in the face of anxiety and panic. We have continued to talk about death and he has continued to cry over his anxiety and fear. It stops my heart every time we talk about it, not because I am afraid to talk about the topic but because it’s a reminder that my child may have inherited from me the one trait I hoped to never pass on.

And that is what I fear the most.