We all slept in my bed last night, the big comfy king. Finn was hesitant because he knows I never sleep well with them both in bed with me, and Ella always comes in, especially recently. I will put them both to bed, in their room split by a sheet hanging from the ceiling, and within five minutes I will hear the running of her small feet and feel her weight hit the bed.

I don’t sleep well because inevitably Ella, on my left, gets tangled in the hose of my CPAP, and both of them migrate to the middle. I will fall asleep with a foot of space beside me and will wake up sweating, a tiny heater on each side, heads on my shoulders, limbs akimbo, blankets like a straight jacket, weighting me down with love. Last night Finn fell asleep holding my hand, and I was reminded of something he said to me when he was three.

“Would you like to share a dream with me? Hold my hand while we sleep.”

It is an indication of the type of mood he is in. Ella is acting out and Finn is acting in, the opposite of their respective gender roles, the honey bee who will sweeten and sting and the meditator. I talked about COVID with them the other day and cleared up some misconceptions that I think helped. Finn thought COVID killed three of ten, and was relieved to know the real statistic. Ella thought it was fifty percent. I don’t think I dissuaded her, but I at least made her question it.

I explained that the numbers are so high here because right now New York is the epicenter, and we’ll likely get better first.

“That makes sense,” Finn said. “We’re a port. People from all over the world come here. They would have landed here with it and it would have spread.”

His thinking of that impressed me. He often thinks outside the realm of a ten-year-old. He has arrived at many theories of quantum physics, psychology, and philosophy on his own, carrying the weight of knowledge on shoulders that are strengthened by spirit. He is right, of course. People brought the virus here the way they brought hopes and dreams.

I believe COVID will get me eventually, and get me good. I believe it will get most of us, but, as I’ve said before, I don’t think I’ll survive it. I don’t want to go out because I grabbed a virus-laden bag of chips and then touched my goddam face.

I just had an opportunity to work for the federal government providing psychiatric support to the doctors and nurses on the COVID units, and to facilitate farewells between patients and family members. It felt like I would be going to war for an eight week tour, six weeks of service followed by a two-week quarantine. I was all in. This is what I am good at – it is the clinical aspect of my job that enables me to survive the administrative part that is so prevalent. This was my chance to actually do something, to change lives, to matter. I sent my resume. I got the paperwork. I tried to remember where my immunization records were and I started to think about logistics.

And then last night Ella had a meltdown. Finn wouldn’t play with her to the extent she wanted him to, and she feels rejection acutely and goes to a particularly dark place. She has been having a tough time at her dad’s – they both have – and feels particularly secluded and rejected there. Earlier in the day she had said that she didn’t want to go back on Sunday. I told her she was with me until the following Sunday because of Spring Break, and she cheered. She already knew this was true before she spoke. She was looking for reassurance.

In times of rejection, she quickly turns Finn’s perceived dislike to me. Suddenly I hate her and am disappointed in her. Suddenly I think she is stupid. Suddenly she is a mistake and the world is better off without her. Suddenly she wishes she were dead. I would say it is heartbreaking to hear these things come from an eight-year-old, but the truth is that there is not a word that adequately describes what it feels and looks like to see your tiny daughter in this pain.

And I realized that I cannot leave her, or Finn. They are both scared. I cannot leave them to another house where they are scared, with Ella’s brokenness suddenly staring me in the face again. There is the person I am, and there is the mother I am, and the mother I am wins.

And so I will be here, on the front lines not of a pandemic but of parenthood, the greater battle, the one I have less hope of winning but the one in which I matter more. I will hold my children rather than holding dying hands. There is no protective equipment to keep us from the pain of raising our children, but luckily that means there is nothing to dull the glory either. This is the fight, and the fate, I choose.

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