Asleep During the Civil War

I catch my ninety-two-year-old father nodding off at his desk. This doesn’t happen often. But there he is, hands on the keyboard, eyes closed, and a slight whiffling snore coming from his mouth. The cursor on his Word document blinks away.

He hadn’t heard me on the stairs. And doesn’t hear me call his name. But when I touch his shoulder, his eyes fly open, his head jerks, and his hands shoot up.

“How could I fall asleep,” he asks, “in the middle of the Civil War?”

I don’t know what my father read that morning. Perhaps, a report like this one, written by a soldier after the Battle of First Manassas:

There were piles of legs, feet, hands and arms, all thrown together, and at a distance, resembled piles of corn at a corn-shucking.  Many of the feet still retained a boot or shoe. Wounded men were lying on tables and surgeons, some of whom at the time were very unskillful, were carving away, like farmers in butchering season, while the poor devils under the knife yelled with pain.  Many limbs were lost that should have been saved, and many lives were lost in trying to save limbs that should have been amputated…

To my dad, history is not just facts and events. I’ve seen the sudden glistening in his eyes when he makes another’s pain his own.

“Such sorrow,” he says now, shaking his head, “and I fall asleep.”

It’s amazing, the pull of sleep. It draws me into oblivion at unthinkable times—when I overnight in a hospital room, for example, while my dad groans in his bed. Though I fight to stay awake through the dark night watches, just before dawn, sleep takes me down.

Sleep is more than a luxury. Like food, our bodies crave it. But though our bodies can’t force us to eat, they can put us to sleep, even behind the wheel of a car or in a hospital room or when we are reading about the Civil War.

And as we sleep, our bodies reset. And our brains. Perhaps the best path from despondency to hope is sleep.

My dad’s micro nap got him going. As I leave, he’s already back in the Civil War, his computer keys clicking away.