The Unbearable Lightness of Online Bedtime Stories
because it's never too late for crushing self-doubt
The voice is rich and mellow as the coffee I am sipping. I am sipping coffee at bedtime because of its soul-warming goodness, especially with chocolate almond milk in it - and that means I am going to be cranked to eleven for the next several hours unless I calm down. Hence, the bedtime stories - and of course, that brings with it yet more stress.
Soothing, hypnotic voices are very popular right now. That makes all the sense in this world of unending outrage and strident ridicule; a soothing voice, male or female, makes the world a better place. It reminds me of my grandmother’s voice at bedtime - not the voice where she found out I broke her ottoman by jumping on it, but the voice where she was just so glad to have me in her dusty-rose and walnut-wood bedroom, with the smell of lavender permeating the sheets. I miss those moments as an adult, and it is lovely to close my eyes and remember that comfort once more.
The voice sings on, telling tales of middle earth, or reading poems, or perhaps even singing a pat little lullaby; and as the feeling of comfort settles in, so comes with it a nagging conviction castigating me just beyond my sense of hearing:
What of my own voice?
I always wanted my children to remember me softly singing ‘Jesus loves me’ or recall the ending of our Childhood Prayer:
“I will always love you; I will never stop loving you…”
But that memory is long ago; today was a different kind of day, a day punctuated by evidence of the end of actual civilisation, as witnessed when Mother uttered the F-Bomb after finding all the chocolate almond milk gone. It has been a long time since I heard my Grandmother’s voice, but I distinctly remember her NOT saying the F-bomb when I broke her ottoman- and I am fairly certain that if one of my birthed persons broke my ottoman right now, I would probably start off with that dreaded word before descending into even greater depths of vocal depravity.
Perhaps I have been listening to too much Tik-Tok.
A crushing sense of self-doubt settles in, the kind that springs from comparing our private reality with others’ public image. Compared with this mellow voice, or my Grandmother’s soft twang, my own voice must sound like a garbage truck backing up. My daughter once told me that my memory smelled not of lavender, but of lipstick and coffee - not entirely bad, as long as the coffee wasn’t stale. But what soundtrack will go with that mom-scented memory?
I remember my own beloved childhood voices, then I imagine my future old-person children listening to a hologram of Morgan Freeman* reading ‘Go the *&$* to Sleep’ and wiping away a tear -
“Oh I do miss Mother so…”
The mellow voice drones on, comforting and chiding, and I continue to ride the wave of guilt, because as a Mother that seems to be my job, and since my children are grown that just makes it even worse;
the moments aren’t coming back. There are no do-overs, there is no rewind, there is no going back - and today is here. I ponder the BedTime Story and its message in my life:
Voices last. Words mean something. The last words of my day may be the first words of my eternity…
I hit pause, then call my children to leave a message: “I’ll always love you; I’ll never stop loving you.” I make sure to hang up without saying why I did this, so they’ll call back in a state of uncertainty as to why Mother is leaving cryptic messages.
Pressing play on my phone, the voice resumes as I remember Grandmother once more, the long-ago lavender moment forever frozen in time. A feeling of absolution fills me; I wonder if my own children will play back this lipstick-and-coffee memory and wonder aloud what the *&#) is wrong with their Mother and why I was calling at midnight to leave this message…
I suppose that’s a fitting legacy.
* Please search VR Morgan Freeman for proof this is really a thing, at least in my mind.