Protective Instincts
By Allie King
@alliehking
I was 10 years old when Dad stopped coming to eat lunch with me at school.
I remember the last time he did. He smiled and joked with my friends as usual, but his eyes seemed darker, his shoulders heavier. As I hunkered over a nacho Lunchable, he told me his hair was going to fall out. He said he wouldn’t want all my friends seeing him like that, so that day would be his last. I wanted to tell him I didn’t care about his hair or my friends; I only cared about him coming back. Instead, I forced a smile and nodded, blinking back the fresh, hot tears threatening to crack my facade. I hugged him a little tighter when it was time to say bye.
Suddenly it made sense; the noise—that guttural swallowing noise that once irked every nerve in my body—was actually the sound of his body fighting to survive. Each swallow was a labored movement, a forced action. The noise I had so selfishly abhorred was the sign the cancer was taking over his lymphatic system. The disease slowly took the life out of Dad. He became a swollen, sickly shell of the man once ready to play kickball at a moment’s notice.
Mom stopped cooking dinner. I didn’t understand why. Strangers came over bearing casseroles, as if the cream-of-chicken soup could heal him. The hugs and smiles were genuine, but I didn’t want them. I wanted Mom to cook dinner and Dad to sit beside me at his spot at the dinner table. I wanted to go back—before the dreadful swallowing noise. Before Dad started choking on his food. Before his nausea took the place of his dinnertime.
I told myself his hair would grow back, and he’d be back in the lunchroom in no time. But as the months wore on, he didn’t just lose hair. He lost the ability to get out of bed. Each round of chemo exhausted his body a little more than the last. Sometimes he slept in my room during the day. My soft mattress was more comfortable on his aching muscles. I’d find his hair there when he did, but I never told him. I wanted to protect him from the pain of my understanding. I didn’t want him to know every strand of hair I found was a punch in my gut, a reminder I might lose him.
By God’s grace, I didn’t lose him. He’s been in remission for 18 years now. He walked me down the aisle on my wedding day. He held each of his grandchildren the day they were born.
He will tell you his battle with cancer changed his life. I’m just now understanding it changed mine too.
***
After high school, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving my family, so I attended college 15 minutes from my parents’ house. I gave family gatherings priority over everything else, afraid I’d miss the birthday party that was someone’s last. I kept a mental catalog of doctor appointments and medications, as if my vigilance could protect my family members from harm.
Four years later, I graduated from college with a work-from-home job and an apartment of my own. I hoped this step into adulthood meant I could lean into independence, but working alone in my apartment, I felt more lost than ever before. I sat at the desk in my bedroom, my toes digging into the cheap carpet underneath my feet, my eyes staring into my laptop screen, my mind lost in looping fixations. Simple assignments took me hours to complete.
I wanted to let go of the worry that engulfed my childhood and adolescence, but my brain held me hostage. My thoughts swirled viciously, interrupting both my work and sleep, until finally I stopped sleeping completely. I borrowed a box fan and a sound machine. I bought Sleepytime Tea and Benadryl. Nothing helped. Overcome with anxiety, I would lie in bed until the sun rose, desperate for the darkness to subside. Eventually, I started sleeping at my parents’ house and seeing a therapist.
Our first session—my very first time in therapy—I told the therapist my reason for coming. “I’m 23, and I can only sleep at my parents’ house,” I said, looking at the ground. I sat on my hands and fidgeted nervously, convinced sweat was visibly seeping through my yoga pants. “I can’t make my body fall asleep at my apartment,” I told him. “I feel like I need to be home with my family.”
“Why do you feel the need to be there?” my therapist asked.
I looked down at the outdated floral sofa underneath my hands, then at the crystal cross on his bookshelf. I knew the answer, but I was afraid of how it might sound when I said it aloud. “To … protect them,” I stammered.
He nodded. His eyes were kind and understanding. He inhaled audibly before pushing a little further. “Have they asked you to do this?”
“Well … not technically, no.”
He paused before responding once more, knowing his words would sting. “Maybe it’s not your job.”
I felt my chest tense, his words digging into the rawest part of my heart. He’d spoken a truth I’d known all along: the job belonged to someone much greater than me.
But He can’t do it! I wanted to scream. Look where He’s gotten me! I wanted to fight.
God lost my trust when I was 10 years old, waiting for my dad to come back to lunch.
***
When my husband and I brought our firstborn home from the hospital, I was freshly stitched up and unknowingly battling two infections. I felt like a million shattered pieces walking through our front door. My feeble body ached from three sleepless nights and a brand-new baby who couldn’t latch. As weak as I felt, I knew my baby was weaker. Born two weeks early, his tiny, fragile body needed me. He needed me to nourish him, and I was desperate to protect him the one way I knew how.
Each time I attempted to latch him to my battered flesh, his head would jerk fiercely from side to side, his screams piercing my ears. I tried everything from different pillows and holds to breathing techniques and massages. Determined to succeed, I’d work for hours until I was sure he was nourished, despite the tears it cost us both. Fever wracked my body, but still I’d nurse him, my bones shaking as I cradled him. Afterwards, I’d collapse under a pile of blankets until my fever broke, giving him to the nearest willing arms. Instead of snuggling him or memorizing his newborn scent, I handed him off, hell-bent only on reserving enough energy to feed him again in two hours.
A few weeks in, nursing became easier, and I made my way out of the pile of blankets. But the better my body felt, the more paralyzed my mind became. I lay awake while my baby slept, his cries echoing in my mind long after they’d stopped. My jaw clenched as I listened in the silence. I shook my husband from his sleep—Did you hear that? Was that him? When I finally dozed off, nightmares shook me from my own shallow sleep. Like a ceaseless cadence, my worst fears pulsed through my mind.
Had his swaddle cut off his circulation? Had he suffocated on spit-up? Was he breathing?
Every time I took him for a walk in his stroller, horrific images flashed through my head without permission. The stroller, rolling down the hill. Me, chasing it three steps behind. The car’s brakes, screeching to a deafening halt. Me, screaming helplessly.
I took his temperature daily, certain I was going to miss a sign of illness. When he felt warm to my touch but my thermometer didn’t confirm it, I bought a new one. I called my pediatrician more than I called my husband and scheduled appointments whenever I could justify it.
He was four months old when his pediatrician illuminated a piece of the truth for me. After finishing yet another unnecessary exam, he paused before leaving the room. He looked me in the eye, knowing his words would sting. “Mom, I think you should stop taking his temperature.”
His words were gentle, containing only a whisper of the truth: It wasn’t my baby who was sick. It was me.
I fixated on protecting my child to the point where I forgot to protect myself, my own mind, my own heart. I tried so hard to be the mother who safeguarded her baby that I lost the woman who grew that baby. I lost the woman who had come to terms with her weakness and surrendered her false idea of control.
It would take months of therapy and eventually medication to find her again.
***
Now that tiny baby is a two-year-old, and I’m pregnant with his sister.
My husband and I sit across from each other at dinner. It’s our first real date since the positive pregnancy test. I lean in, resting my elbows on the table, cupping my chin in my hands. I look into my husband’s deep brown eyes and smile.
“I wonder if she’ll look like you,” I muse. “Or maybe she’ll look like me, with blue eyes and straight hair.” I pause, lost in my thoughts. “Do you think we’ll be good girl parents?”
He thinks for a moment, his forehead creasing. “The real question is, what will we do when she enters the world of racy TikTok videos, mean girls, and sleazy boys?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “We have some time to figure that out.”
We sit in silence for a minute, the weight of his question growing heavier by the second. “Really,” he continues, “how will we protect her?”
***
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to protect my loved ones and myself from pain. But can we really protect ourselves from pain? And do we really want to?
Pain shapes us. It’s the catalyst to compassion, the fire that forms unbreakable bonds, the blood that births unconditional love. Whether we like it or not, pain lives all around us. And whether I like it or not, my children will know it. Sickness will touch their lives. Loved ones will die. Their hearts will break, and their bodies will fail.
And maybe they will be better for it. Maybe they will be glad I stepped back from playing the role of protector and tended to my own healing, my own faith. Maybe, one day, they will thank me for living my story so they could live theirs.
Guest essay written by Exhale member Allie King. Allie is a creativity enthusiast who’s spent much of her life dreaming up DIY projects and writing about interior design. Now, she’s a full-time mama learning how creativity exists alongside dirty diapers and spilled smoothies. As an Enneagram 4, she finds solace writing about life’s most emotional trials and triumphs—and the way faith shapes them. She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her husband, son, and daughter. You can find more of her words on Instagram or on her website.
Photo by Kaytlyn Eggerding.