I was simply refusing, breath by breath, to leave my child alone in the dark.

I have tried, many times, to explain to people what that was actually like, and I have mostly failed, because it does not translate into ordinary language.

But I will try once more here, because it is the truest thing I know about being a mother, and I learned it in the worst possible classroom.

What I discovered on that ledge is that there is a kind of strength that does not belong to you, that you cannot summon for your own sake, that only becomes available when someone smaller and more helpless than you is depending on you to find it.

For myself alone, I was finished.

I want to be honest about that.