finding comfort

In the pew in front of us the young father shifted his sleepy baby girl to his shoulder. She snuggled into his shoulder, reached her delicate little hand up and slid it under the collar of his shirt to touch his warm skin. Her contented, sleepy face reminded me of my babies who sought soft, smooth pieces of material for comfort … especially my lingerie.
As a toddler, my youngest gravitated to the silky, soft material of my slips. Once, she came out to me, held out the slip I had just dropped in the laundry basket and very sincerely said, “Doesn’t it smell good?”
I blinked at her in astonishment as I slowly realized that to her it smelled of comfort, safety and security.
When something upset her little world, she wanted a ‘sulkey’ – as she called any silky, soft material – to make her world all right again. If she misplaced one, she considered my drawer her personal supply cupboard. All too frequently as I dressed for church, I would open my drawer and fruitlessly reach for a slip, sigh and trudge to my daughter’s bedroom and pull back her bedding to find one to wear.
All too frequently as we drove home after church her “it’s almost time for lunch” cries tugged my heart strings. Seeking to calm her, I would slide the slip down over my feet and hand it back to her.
For many years my undergarments calmed her. Because any garment would do, it took a lot to break the habit, especially at bed time. Eventually she discovered the softness of a kitten’s little pink nose and feet and taught the kitten to lay very still and enjoy having its nose stroked as they both drifted off to sleep.
Her older brother preferred my nightgowns. He didn’t care which one – until the day my sister gave me a floor length, brilliant, orangish-red gown she no longer wanted. I wore it once. That was the first and last time I wore it. He claimed it as his own and dragged that tangerine negligee out to the yard to play, to bed as he nodded off to sleep and made sure it was not too far away the rest of the day.
He and that gown were inseparable – especially in the weeks after his second birthday as we waited for the arrival of another baby to move him up to the status of big brother. When the baby finally came, I proudly took the new baby home to present to him and his older siblings.
The toddler stared in awe at this new tiny infant who looked around at all the new faces … and began crying.
Each child’s face clouded with concern, but the toddler immediately knew what to do, he ran into the other room, grabbed his tangerine nighty, came back and thrust his sure fire solution to distress at the crying infant in a gesture of “Here, this will make you feel better.”
He quietly took it back later that day, but with that passing down of his personal means of comfort, it was not long until it permanently disappeared. He never found another one to replace it. He had become a big brother.


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