When we put our son, Charlie, to bed each night, he complains about having to go to sleep. He refers to it as a “big sleep.”
“Mommy, it’s going to be a big sleep.”
“Daddy, I don’t like a big sleep.”
We explain to him that a big sleep is important to being healthy and growing up to be a big boy, but damn it, why does he have to phrase his sleep every night in such terrifying existential terms?
Doesn’t he know how much his father already suffers from an ever-present, unbelievably potent existential crisis? Doesn’t he know how often the fear of death stabs an icy stake in my heart?
The last thing I want to be thinking about as I put my son to bed each night is the real big sleep… the one that will someday obliterate my world.
Thanks, buddy, for hurting me where it hurts most.
