Please Let Me Sleep

Dear Santa,

It’s 2:00 in the morning and I can’t sleep. I see her lying there, so quiet, peaceful and it burns me that I’m relieved. For this brief moment, it’s as if she’s just asleep. Except I can’t get past the tubes and wires: her food, her breath.

What did I do to deserve this? What did she do to deserve this? So small. So fragile. Not even enough time to know the world. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to wrap her in that cream and pink blanket Great Gran made, buckle her into the car seat and be on our way. Twenty-four hours, the mandatory stay these days.

That was 34 days, 12 hours and 17 minutes ago.

I thought I did everything right. I’ve never done drugs. Don’t smoke. No drinking. Waddled on the treadmill every day. Ate perfect balanced meals.

Doctors say there’s nothing we could have done.

I don’t believe them.

There’s always something. A reason for everything. Isn’t that what they say? Everything happens for a reason?

I’m not a religious person. I don’t believe in a “God” per se—much to my devout Catholic mother’s disappointment. A transgression she reminds me of all the time. She thinks since I strayed from the church, don’t believe in the same things she does, my prayers will go unheard.

Maybe she’s right.

She and her group of bible petting ladies are praying for her.

Praying for me.

All this hovering, all this staring, all the doctors muffled whispers and the sideways, downward gazes of the nurses. They already know what I won’t admit.

I don’t know how these miracles work and I’m not so good at asking for things, but if there is one thing, one wish—

Please, Santa. Let me sleep.