Early morn scary.

3:30 am.

Loud little voice calling for me. I scurry in through the thick dark, around LEGO pieces and bottle caps and scissors and tiny monsters and I pick her up, and she clutches me in the fierceness that comes only with relief from panic and whispers…

"Daddy, I am sorry for screaming.
I just got a little bit scared of the moon and the dark.
But now I will try and be brave with you."

“You are brave,”
I whispered, holding her just tight of crushing.
”I will try and be brave with you.”

___

Does your heart ever feel like it is so full of something ephemeral that it could burst? If only there was a word to describe that ephemeral feeling.

I have known the feeling, possibly even at a point between midnight and 6 am once upon an occasion (see above).