The only thing that Samspon was ever afraid of was thunderstorms. And he was VERY afraid of thunderstorms. The list of things that I'm afraid of is relatively short, though not as short as Sam's list.
He would know when a storm was approaching and would wake me up by lying on my head. Literally. When a 50lb. dog lies on your head, you notice. I just realized that Sam was only really afraid of thunderstorms at night or when we weren't home. If there was a storm during the day when we were home, he wasn't very bothered. If there was a storm while we were gone we would sometimes find him in the basement when we got home. When a storm was coming at night I would wake up with Sam on or near my head and the only thing that would comfort him was letting him sleep next to me with his head buried under my pillow or the sheets. Picture it. Big, strong, brave, gentle Sam with his head shoved under my pillow for "safety". I would pet him and tell him it would be fine and I not-so-secretly loved those times when he needed some comforting. When the storm was over he would emerge and return to his normal independent self. I often think that he sheepishly claimed to have been comforting me during the storm...
Just thunderstorms. That's the only thing he was ever afraid of. I don't know why, though I know that it was true for his whole life - until he began to lose his hearing. The blessing of hearing loss for Sam was sleeping through thunderstorms.
I'm going to spend some time with the things that I'm afraid of and see if I can know why they affect me. I'm also going to see what I can "sleep through"... What about you?
No comments:
Post a Comment