Very young children are strangers to the night. It is usually experienced as a giant, dark hand that clasps the windows, shutting out all that is familiar. Thus the night is imbued with a vague sense of danger, which, unfortunately, finds its expression in that ultimate adult projection: the Bogey Man.
Yet for me, it is a special time.
When humankind sleeps, something magical takes place. There comes a softness, for the night is kind. In its shadows, a shrunken tree becomes a sculpture, a derelict house; a monument in black stone.
Night’s caress is a benediction; with it comes a wonderful sensation that, under the inverted bowl of the sky, the universe wheels in a giant, mysterious arc with you at its centre.
So it was, that when I stepped into the sultry night last week with my son in my arms, my thought had been to share this with him. To my surprise, it was the child who became the teacher.
“Dadda!” he cried, pointing at a passing tram. It was transformed. Now it was a roaring monster that broke the silence with its rattle and clanging glare, its passengers caught like frozen mannequins in its internal lights.
As the tram passed and silence and darkness fell again, my son’s eyes widened in delight. He gazed at a world he had never seen before; a world of soft shadows and silhouettes; whilst above, the velvet sky curved, punctuated by the bright blossoms of a myriad stars.
I spoke in a whisper, for there is a reverence about the night that renders loud speech crude: “The night,” I whispered to him, his tiny, warm body close to mine.
He giggled, eyes dancing, and I resorted to an old trick he loved: with my left hand on his chest and my right hand beneath him, I raised him slowly into the air as dancer holds a ballerina aloft. In response, he straightened his back, craned his head and pointed a tiny finger to the silent blessing of the stars. He whispered with such child-like awe that the words seemed almost religious: “The nigh’, Dadda,” he repeated, “The nigh’."
I truly thought my heart would break: his tiny body poised aloft, finger pointing like a Michelangelo cherub, his face glowing with wonder, the stars in his eyes. In that perfect moment, I felt that the night was ours alone; and should I let go, he would float gently upwards to his rightful place in the heavens.
Life is a mystery upon which we often ponder, but in that moment, holding my son aloft, all such questions were swept aside by the sheer eloquence of this tiny child, alive with the wonder of existence. For, through his eyes, I caught a glimpse of Paradise.
Later, walking back up our garden path, he clung to me happily, head on my breast. Just before we entered the house, sensing his time was over, he raised his head and gazed into my eyes, his own lustrous with the light that was our heritage, is our heritage. “The nigh’, Dadda, the nigh’,” he repeated, reverential, joyous.
Soon I shall take him out into the rain, another time I shall take him to see the ocean. Of course, because adult eyes have grown old and cannot see, he shall show them all to me afresh, for in truth I didn't show him the stars, it was he who showed them to me.
Just two years old, my son has taught me that Paradise is not in some exotic location or Palace of Opulence. All we have to do is cease our eternal hurrying and stop and look; for it is here, now.