Moms know what it sounds like. It is what instinct sounds like when given a voice. It is guttural. It is un-human. It is the sound of a mother when her worst fears are about to be (or have been) realized.
I first heard it when I was a senior in high school. I was spending the evening at my boyfriend's house. He came from a big family and hanging out with his parents and brothers and sisters was actually a fun way to spend a Friday night.
Not long into the evening, while we were all playing a board game on the floor of the living room, the phone rang. A friend was calling to share the sad news that mutual family friends had just experienced the death of their very young son (not older than 6 or 7 years if I remember right). I will never forget the sounds I heard coming from the upstairs bedroom as my boyfriend's father attempted to comfort (or rather contain) his wife's sobs. It was other-worldly as she wept, cried out, and grieved the loss of the boy, and bore in her own being the pain of her friend.
I have heard similar sounds since. And I quickly came to realize that the sounds can also emanate from mothers who are anticipating their fears as well. But not until yesterday did I know what it felt like to be the one giving voice to them myself.
We were in the kitchen of our new home. As with all new homes there are things to get used to. Simple idiosyncrasies that exist from one home to the next. This door closes louder than that one did, this drawer sticks when the old one didn't, etc. Well, our doors are different in this new house. We have two. The front door automatically latches behind you when you leave. The other door, the one only accessible through the utility room and thus less frequently used, does not.
Levi has just gotten to the age where he now realizes doors lead somewhere. He has also realized that his body has the power to open doors. He has taken up the hobby of pushing with all his might (with his backside mind you) on the front door, just hoping it will give way and he'll get to taste even a few moments of freedom! But, to no avail.
Until yesterday. Brad was at home and working in the utility room. He stepped away from his project momentarily, leaving the heavy door open and the storm door exposed. That was all the time it took for Levi to make his way in and turn himself around. I realized, as soon as my ears heard the first brushing noise, exactly what was happening. I was across the kitchen--farther from him than Brad was. Since Brad isn't home all day with the kids, he isn't as aware of their new-found techniques as I am. So when I heard Levi beginning to lean on the door, I knew (and knew Brad didn't) exactly what was about to happen.
The door leads to the concrete carport. It is a long way down from the door to the carport below--a difficult step even for adults to safely navigate when facing forward. And here was tiny Levi, preparing to press with all his might on the unsecured door, while facing backward.
It's amazing how when a dangerous situation arises your mind moves faster than the speed of light it seems. All at one time I knew what he was doing, what he was going to do, what was going to result, and how bad it was going to be. We were going to be calling 9-1-1. He would fall, head-first, onto the concrete below, and the door would close on the rest of his little body. And there would be blood. And it would be bad--very bad.
In that instant, a sound came from inside me that I didn't know I could make. It mixed with my voice as I shouted to Brad the only words I could form which were "That door doesn't latch. That door doesn't latch! THAT DOOR DOESN'T LATCH!!!!!! in an attempt to get him to move more quickly across the kitchen than I could in order to do whatever he could to stop Levi before one thing led to the next.
I didn't even yell the words. Really (surprisingly). But the sound I made, out of sheer desperation, was so frightening that it sent Gillian into tears simply because she sensed the fear in those words.
Levi did fall through the door. He did land on the carport concrete. The door did close on him. But by the grace of God he fell in stages. A little at a time, so that no individual injury was serious enough to need any emergency treatment. And of course the next 15 minutes were spent comforting him and his poor frightened sister.
After it was over I had a chance to reflect on what came over me in those moments leading up to the incident. Something inside of me had changed and I was desperate. I was pleading those words to Brad in an attempt to move him to stop what was about to happen because I was limited in my ability to do so from where I stood.
And it made me think of God. All of a sudden, I wondered if that's the sound God makes every time one of his children steps into danger. Every time he sees one of us on the brink of a self-inflicted pending disaster. Every time we're that close to falling, or stepping, away from Him. Of course, unlike human me, he can rush to our side. He has foreknowledge. He can be there before we even arrive on the scene. He's not limited. Or is he?
He limits himself. He waits in the wings and he watches what we'll do. He knows the danger about to befall. He knows the repercussions of what we'll choose. But instead of latching the door, he stands. And as we fall (as we SO often do), I think heaven hears that other-worldly sound of a parent pleading for someone to intercede, to stop us, to pull us back from the edge to where we're safe again.
Why, until now, had I assumed he just sat contentedly by and watched, maybe frowned a time or two, and accepted what we were doing--what I was doing? He created me. He models parenthood. I am made in His image. Where else would this instinctual response come from if not from Him? Why wouldn't he react this same way as a parent, as MY parent, too?
And in those tragic circumstances when we fully deny him. When his children leave him all together. When they choose a life away from him. Well, I think that sound can only be heaven's interpretation of what I heard that night at the bottom of the stairs listening to a mother cry for a child who she knew she could not bring back no matter how much she wished or willed it to happen.
