The Darkest Night of the Year

I hear a crescendoing pitter patter in our upstairs hallway seconds before two little feet dive into my bed. My daughter’s little heart beats wildly at first, but it’s not long before I feel her settle into me. Adrenaline fading, she drifts back to sleep with slow, steady breaths.

We repeat this pattern night after night: sometimes at 2am and sometimes later, sometimes after a bad dream and sometimes with leg cramps, sometimes just for a hug and sometimes for no reason at all other than to be together. I wonder what scares her most about the nighttime trip on the well worn carpeted path between her room and mine.

***

When we are celebrating the end of the school year and filling the freezer with popsicles, weeks before earlier sunsets are even perceptible, the maple tree in my backyard already knows a long, dark winter is coming. Her mature leaves work feverishly to soak up the sun, and she isn’t afraid.

Instead, within her begins a complex dance of pigments and acids and specialized layers of cells: a metamorphosis of living cells into something that can withstand the cold.

She knows the chlorophyll in her leaves that fueled her growth in the brighter months will not be needed in the darkness of winter. So, those tiny, green molecules decay, the bonds between their atoms dissolve and, without chlorophyll, she’s ready to shed her leaves in a dazzling, crimson display.

But this flaming finale only seems like denouement, and what she leaves behind only seems like bare branches.

Because she knows the darkness is not the end, she settles into winter adorned with next spring’s buds. Packed into each delicate bud are swirling patterns of immature leaves. She takes care to clasp each one in dainty scales tough enough to protect their tender promise of new life yet transparent enough to sense when the days grow longer and warmer. Waiting for the light. Waiting for life.

On the cusp of winter, I wonder if theirs is a hopeful, patient waiting or if it’s more akin to a sprint down a darkened hallway. Do they know when they’ve survived the darkest night of the year?

***

My daughter stands in the doorway to the bedroom she shares with her sisters. Ribbons of sunlight stream through the window, casting her silhouette on the far wall of the upstairs hallway. She paces back and forth between her bedroom and mine, counting her steps, and then starting over again.

“It seems further at night,” she tells me with a puzzled look on her face. She’s right. Whatever the season, it always seems further in the dark.