The Cloak of Dawn... Not all it seems.

Mornings, for me, have always been something I’ve protected and kept to myself. I like my alone time. Being in a relationship is weird, because then I need to share the morning, and there’s something odd about that. It removes a little of who it is I am – a secret hoarder of moments and time. A solitary port in the storm, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Most of the time.

Mornings are virginal. The sins of the night are washed away and the world wakes up, fresh and new. There’s this naivety we all have, that if it’s daylight, it must be safe. It’s why things like 9/11 jar us to our core, because it’s daylight and we see it all. Horrors should be confined to nighttime, we would think, but it’s seldom ever that way.

It’s times like these that I despise mornings. I know the truth, that thing we try to pretend isn’t so, that horrors happen in all hours, and daylight doesn’t protect us from anyone or anything. After all, there are no vampires.

There are so many hours between dawn and the nothingness of night. So much can happen. When someone’s tied up to machines and the threat of surgery and illness looms, every breath is an effort, every fresh breath is a gift. It’s unpredictable. Everything can change on a dime, and it often does.

Mornings at these times of my life simply remind me how utterly powerless I am to effect change. I can’t make change happen. I can’t have a wish and command “Make it so”. I’m just a girl with a sob story and a hope things’ll pick up and move on. My mother died at the crack of dawn. 4:20am in the early days of August, when the sun’s already above the horizon. No, I don’t like mornings in times like these.

I’m still gravely concerned for my father. I have to be. I’m his daughter. I have a big heart, just like him, and I suppose that if there’s anything I really get from my father, it’s my kindness and generosity. I would like the opportunity to thank him for his values, and I hope to have that chance this weekend.

I can’t explain my uncanny knack of know-it-allness without sounding like a flighty fool. It sounds so dumb, to be able to claim to know what’s coming down the pipes. I don’t think I’m prescient and I don’t plan on setting up a fortune teller’s booth anytime soon, no worries there. But I just know that I have this instinct that seldom ever steers me wrong. I know when things aren’t right. I know when certain situations are going to fail. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I just often know. It’s not very often that I get surprised in life. I almost half expect any misery or tragedy that comes my way. It works with people, too. I’ve always accurately known who would betray my trust and who wouldn’t. I guess I pretty much sense adversity before it hits and I brace myself, like someone who sees an accident about to happen. I can never change outcomes or anything. I’m no sorcerer. I just have an early warning system, is all.

Last week, I knew something worse was going to happen to my father. It’s funny, everything happened on Wednesday, but I never found out until nightfall. I woke up last Wednesday in a horrible mood. I went into work and told my co-worker I couldn’t figure it out, but something was wrong, and I was really feeling it. When I got that call Wednesday night, it all made sense. Yet I knew it was going to go downhill. When I saw him Sunday, something broke inside of me. I was absolutely miserable on Monday. When I heard he’d been moved into ICU, that, too, made sense and wasn’t a huge surprise. I hated to be right, but it wasn’t a surprise.

I traveled out there Tuesday to see him, and somewhere on the transit line, something hit me. I just felt like this was going to be the worst of it. A weight evaporated and I just adapted to the heady reality of the moment, with less fear of the future.

So, part of me believes the worst is over and things are going to improve. Not all of me. Not by a long shot. I don’t know if it’s just me wanting him to be better, or if he’s really going to get there. The heart’s a mighty organ and emotions are tough to navigate. Sometimes we want something so bad we don’t know where our thoughts are really coming from – pragmatism, realism, or the realm of fantasy. So, I really don’t know what’s going down with my father. Somewhere inside, I think he’s got another lease that he’ll get to live out. I don’t know. All I can do is hope, and instead of hoping I was wrong last week, now I’m hoping I am right.

All I know is, I hate mornings right now, and this one is no exception.