I awake at 3 a.m., and try to remember if there’s something I’ve forgotten. I silently list each city, recalling each house. I’m confused about the early ones though. The ones from the toddler and pre-school years are, of course, mostly a blur.

As I bring to mind each house, specific memories and feelings accompany each one. There’s something I can’t put my finger on, perhaps a darkness or melancholy mood, with each recollection.

Nothing more than the same memories come to mind:

• Awaking in either a baby or toddler bed from a daytime nap and seeing my family walking in the garden outside the window.
• My mother humming and rocking me to sleep in the darkness.
• Seeing my sister alone and crying. When I asked why she cried, she said that sometimes girls cry for no reason.
• Bathing in a large pail because we didn’t have a tub, and I was too small to take a shower.
• The incident over breakfast at the table.
• Jumping from chair to couch and back as I danced to Floyd Cramer and sang along to Barry Manilow.
• Crawling out my window to play after my sister locked me in my bedroom.
• Avoiding the kitchen that always gave me the creeps.
• Hearing cats screech so loudly the entire house woke up when we lived with my grandmother.
• Playing detective with my best friend until we’d scare ourselves silly.
• Staring at the floor-to-ceiling posters of musicians that covered my bedroom walls.
• Going on my first date with a guy who was much older than what I’d told my parents.
• Spending the weekend with my best friends before my family moved during my senior year.

Certainly, there are more memories than these, but there are gaps as well.

I toss and turn and beg God to help me make sense of the last few years. The discoveries, the letting go, the heartache, the new, the old. These days, the wonderful and the horrible coexist. Joy and sadness intermingle. And I ask for the hundredth time, What is it, God? What has to be unearthed? And I know whatever it is must be from those early years.

I ponder a few more possibilities before forcing my mind to think of something else.

Around 4:00, I pray for a friend who needs to write but is struggling with the words. Though we’ve never met in person, I know she’s in my life for a purpose. I can’t help but wonder if it’s the roots, the unearthing; after all, she had her own roots to dig up and toss out.

I never fall back asleep. But I avoid any other thoughts that make the darkness of the room seem darker. I rest until the alarm buzzes and the darkness begins to lift outside the window. I rise to the busyness of the morning and determine that my girls will never know the darkness if I can help it.