One Saturday morning – by L. Samsarah Morgan
Long ago, on a saturday morning – I was awakened by a loud boom, my whole home shook.
At that time, my twins were 5 , my little one was three and we lived in Nassau county, NY.
The boom sounded ans after a quick lance at my husband, I went into my children’s room to see how the loud sound affected them. It hadn’t really, they were blissfully playing on the floor in their room. Hot wheels cars were everywhere, and the races were being cheered on.
Since they weren’t scared, I didn’t wish to bring them my fear – I sat on the floor with them, my heart pounding. I breathed deeply and watched them play, attempting to calm myself as best I could.
I thought about all of the things that sound could have meant. The most scary option was that it could have been the result of some kind of attack. Long Island was the home of many companies involved in the arms industry. Rockets, planes and parts for instruments of war were manufactured there. So if there was any sort of aggression between our country and say, Russia , there were quite a few targets on long island which would be on the list to be hit. Many of these targets were very close to my home. But then again, I thought, if even one of those targets had been hit, there wouldn’t be silence now. There would be noise and confusion of the communities response to such a thing. But what if our country for some reason was acting first, or responding to an attack elsewhere? What I knew about that was that our missiles would take a half hour to reach Russia, and an hour for their response to reach us.
This sort of thing might seem very paranoid to today, but we were still living in the cloud of the cold war in the early 80’s , so what I feared wasn’t all that far fetched.
My husband entered the room and smiled at the playing children – they ran to him for morning hugs. He informed me that he had turned on CNN as well as the local news, and there was no information on the sound which jolted us from our sleep & shook our home. He said that we was going to talk to our neighbors to find our what they knew. I motioned to him to step out into the hall to speak out of ear shot of the kids, and he followed me into the hallway, after peeling delighted little boys of his body.
“lets stay together,” I requested close to tears, “for another half hour”. I explained to him my concern that the shaking meant the worst, and that if tha was the case, I wanted us to be together as a family, at least 20 mins had passed, another 40 mins would rule out that possibility.
He looked at me as is I were more thana bit bonkers, and tried to reassure me that it couldn’t possibly be what I feared… he said of course I should stay with the children, but that he felt that he had to go see if he could find out what was going on.
I didn’t want him to go – but I didn’t want to argue either. After a hug, he walked down the stairs and out of the house. I returned to my children, who were now gleefully tossing a NERF ball to one another. I looked at them, my heart so full of love, precious little boys! Over cautious? Negative? I actually prayed that that was the case..the alternative brought tears to my eyes. But I was aware that this world was a place were very scary things could and did happen, I was raised with duck and cover drills when I was in elementary school.
I had also experienced so much of the dark and scary side of life in my own family, and it would take many more years of loving and soul healing therapy before that world view would shift for me.
So, on this Saturday, I took a deep breath, and walked to the book shelf, my hands fell upon “ green eggs and ham”, by dr. sues. “story time. “ I said to the boy, “lets snuggle,” My children scampered over to me full of smiles. I got a blanket and sat us all in a corner of their room, away from the window.
This is a great game , mommy, my first-born, David said. “snuggle reading!” I smiled at him, “yes, pumpkin, snuggle reading”.
We all snuggled together, the twins , David and Robert, on either side of me and the baby, Joey in my lap, I put my arms around them all – joey held the book, and turned the pages for me. And there we sat – warm and toasty, reading Dr. Suess and letting the time pass. I loved having arms full of sweet little boys. While I read I allowed myself to just drink in the absolute joy of the sounds and smells of my precious children.
If I was wrong – we would have just shared an extra special story time morning – and if I was right and there was some sort of attack – we would be together, close and warm. I read slowly and with a smile on my face – and my children giggled and read along with me – adding commentary on the silliness of sam I am, who didn’t want to try the green eggs and ham… When the book was over – the children cheered, I clapped with them, and kissed each little head….
A few moments, after we were done, my husband returned. He entered the room and said, “you guys are having way too much fun without me!” he got under the blanket with us, and the children swarmed him, he kissed and wrestled with them, and I watched them all – loved them all and began to cry.
“why are your crying mommy?” said my David.
“because I love you all so very much,” I said.
Don’t cry if you are happy mommy, you should laugh. My sweet son came to me and kissed my cheeks. While I explained that sometimes we cried when we are happy too…
My husband announced “lets got to Friendly’s for breakfast!” The children squealed with delight and ran off to the bathroom to get ready…
After they left the room he turned to me and said – “it was an earthquake, amazing, huh?”
“An earth quake, on Long Island ?,” I said , astonished. He nodded affirmatively. He hugged me and I wept on his shoulder with relief.
He gently rocked me and said, “man, you are really brave” I asked him why he thought so, “you were so scared but your kept your thoughts on the kids, on keeping them calm – that really was the best thing to do for them. I just really felt that I had to get more information…, guess I was being a guy..
“No,” I said, “you were being a father – thank you.”