Keep With Me Forward All Through The Night, And Once We Start The Meter Clicks, And It Goes Running Through All The Night

--"All Through The Night", Cyndi Lauper

I never got read bedtime stories as a kid. At least I don't remember the practice being enforced in my parents' household. I think our parents taught my brother and I to read at an early age expressly for the reason of being able to entertain ourselves with books. Consequently, I never got to live through that whole experience of being comforted at night by one's parents patiently waiting by the bedside until I fell asleep.

I've always thought that had a lot to do with my being a horrible insomniac. Whenever I got scared late at night (usually of ghosts) I never felt comfortable running to them to come help me. Somewhere in the back of my mind that my concerns wouldn't be taken seriously. At that point I would have two choices--try to tough it out in bed, waiting for whatever malevolent creature was out there in the wilds of the hallway to come get me, or stay up to watch television. As you can tell by somewhat voracious viewing appetite I usually chose the latter option.

Maybe it would have been different if I had had someone who I thought was willing to stay up with me. Maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone on the other side of midnight if I knew somebody who would've broken their slumber to comfort me. But I didn't.

Yet I never forgot the experience of being scared and on your own when the whole world seemed to be dead to you. I don't think it's a feeling I'll ever forget (even as I am writing this at 3:28 in the morning). And because of that I was in the rarified position to be there for someone in a way that someone was never there for me.

As she's written about countless times, Breanne used to have a problem with running away from home a good deal of the time. I'm not here to expound upon the reasons why since those are articles best left to her to articulate. I can, however, speak about the practice's effect upon me. Being someone I deeply care about, even from early on into our friendship, it usually fell to me to try and talk her back home. In those instances where she would not answer her folks' pleas to return back to the household, I was practically the only one whose phone calls she would actually take. And I know I was the only one she would regularly call of her own volition when she would go on these jaunts through the city.

You could say it made me that voice in the night for her. She wouldn't have admitted it at the time but I think she called me precisely because she was scared of being alone. She used to tell me that she was calling because she needed somebody to talk her into going back home, but more often than not that's precisely what she would end up not doing. We'd talk for an hour or two, she'd make her way to her friend's house or a relative's house (or sometimes not). The only criteria that would remain the same would be the fact that she would not get off the phone with me until she felt safe.

I used to believe that it was a little too much responsibility for someone to take on in the name of friendship. After all, I had never encountered anyone else whose duties as a best friend included making sure that their friend had a warm place to sleep that night and access to a hot meal the next morning. I had never run across anyone else who had to fret their friend being startled by phantoms of misbegotten rapists, murderers, and other such criminals every time he encountered a prolonged moment of silence in the conversation. I used to think it was too big of a job for one person to handle. If she died, if she was hurt, if she was never found again--it would be my fault. I would receive the lion's share of the blame.

I used to tell her and her parents that her leaving home was their affair. I told them that I didn't want to be their middle man. At least in the beginning that's what I told them.

Then one day not long after I had been looking after Breanne for a few months it hit me. This isn't what one friend does for another usually. It's far too much of a burden for a common, ordinary friend. What the task resembled and what I began to think of it as was what an older brother does for his sister. He covers his sister even while he's still there watching over her to make sure she doesn't get into any serious trouble. He's the one who stays up on the phone for her because she feels like he's the only one who "gets" her. He's the one who is able to reassure the parents that, although she doesn't feel comfortable coming back just yet, he's making sure that that's the decision she'll eventually arrive at.

Most importantly, it falls to somebody who more resembles a brother to be there when she just needs a voice on the other end of the line to reassure her that she's not alone. Because it doesn't matter whether or not he thinks she's being foolhardy and reckless with her life. He can't physically be there to rein her in. What he can do is be the reassurance she needs to stay sharp while she is out on the street. What he can do is not let her fall into despair like he did when he was young. Perhaps he never actually read her stories while she was walking through the neighborhood at eleven, twelve, or much later at night, but he did tell her stories of what he did that day. He did make up stupid jokes about what a wicked brat she was. And, of course, he sang to her every request for a song she ever made of him.

It was the least I could do. Especially after I started understanding what my updated role was, I finally could see that more than recriminations, more than passing the responsibility on, and more than I-told-you-so's, Breanne just needed to feel like someone was on her side. She needed to feel like somebody understood why she was angry and hopeless and confused. And rather than brush aside her concerns like they didn't matter, she merely needed someone to stay up with her until she was ready to go to sleep, once she had that feeling of safety again.

I stopped minding the late-night phone calls. All of a sudden it became more worrisome on those nights when her parents would call me worried and she didn't call. It stopped being a chore I wasn't sure I was up to undertaking to a responsibility that I bore with a certain sense of urgency. It's one thing to feel you have a friend who you're constantly bailing out and it's another thing entirely to feel like you have a sibling you're worried about. At that point I didn't have a choice, I only had an unbreakable link to somebody for the first time in my life.

After that, that's when I started that whole, "Good night, Breannie mine, with your eyes so bright, tears so silvery, and my kisses still wet on your cheek," thing because that's just the kind of thing that a brother would say to his younger sister. And it became our little signal that everything was right between us.

Indeed, that's a good deal of what she still is to me, the younger sister I never had. And to this day I still end of the majority of my phone calls to her in the same manner... no matter what time of the day it is. She'll always have me to be the person who is always with her when she's feeling lost and alone.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers