📿 Grappling with Fear

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When our daughter Ruby was born, Adreanna and I were terrified about keeping her alive. We took turns staying awake in four-hour shifts, watching her breathe in the bassinet beside the bed. I’d stay up from 8:00 PM to midnight, then Adreanna would take over while I slept, and we’d swap again at 4:00 AM. Ruby, meanwhile, was a sweetheart—no major issues—but we were still afraid she’d simply stop breathing in the middle of the night.

I remembered those early days recently because if you look up “snot-nosed toddler” you will now see her photo in the dictionary. This is a temporary condition (I’m sure they will swap the photo out soon) based on a cold she has had for the last week. One congested night, she would only sleep on me, snoring so loudly into my ear such that I could not rest. I didn’t mind; the one time I fell deep asleep I woke with a start, panicked because I couldn’t feel her breathing. She was fine, of course.

In addition to thinking of our early-stage fears about the not-breathing-thing, I thought about the most irrational fear I’ve had for her: that she would not grow any teeth.

Yes, just because she was a gummy baby for a while, I took to Google to make sure there wasn’t some birth defect that she might have meaning she would never grow chompers. A few days later, she began moaning about a few cutting through her gums and my fear, like most of my fears, dissolved under the weight of reality.

This week, I noticed my fear about her ability to socialize with other toddlers, as she stood apart with a certain wide-eyed amazement from a playgroup, watching the other more rambunctious toddlers run into each other with push-carts and climb on jungle gyms. What if she never learns to play? “Hello fear my old friend” I hummed, to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s hit.

I don’t recall having so many fears before Ruby. And, projecting out, I imagine I will have all sorts of fears for her going forward:

• what if she doesn’t make friends? (she will)

• what if she gets bullied at school? (probably…and this is one that will drive Adreanna and I to a point of rage that we are already discussing how best to handle)

• what if she never gets a job (who knows? maybe AI will have abolished jobs by then)

Recently a meditation student reached out to me, mentioning that their child has been unwell for the last year. I viscerally felt for them as to have your kid (i.e. your heart) out living in the world unwell, means you are fundamentally unwell too. And yet, there will be times when Ruby will be - emotionally, mentally or physically - unwell. This is a part of life for all of us.

In particular, I think of parents who wake up in places where their life and the lives of their children feel insecure, whether it be here in the United States, in the Middle East or elsewhere, and my heart simply breaks bearing witness to the understandable fear that accompanies their horrible situation.

Parenting has shown me that fear is inevitable - this too is a part of the human experience. Some of us fear for our job security during these extremely rough economic times. Others have fear about basic civil rights being revoked under a new president. Some of us are plagued with anxiety that feels more nameless and ephemeral, and yet haunts our decision-making on a daily basis.

“Fear Eats The Soul” by Rirkrit Tiravanija, 2017

In her book Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chodron writes about the Buddha’s teaching on emptiness:

“With the teachings on emptiness he pulled the rug out completely, taking his students further into groundlessness. He told them that whatever they believed had to be let go, that dwelling upon any description of reality was a trap. The Buddha’s principle message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusions we might draw must be let go.”

Pema concludes her chapter by pointing out that this set of teachings, known as the Heart Sutra, are essentially teachings on fearlessness.