What we can't see

I recently came across this post from two years ago. 

We had just moved into our new home.

When I posted it back then, I had laughed, chuckling at how adorable she was. Thinking, how cute for her to have all her stuffies around her. I shared the adorable moment and forgot about it.

When I saw it again, two years later, I saw the reality I hadn't been aware of then. I couldn't see it before, two years ago. I didn't know.

She was afraid.

I was shocked, when I saw it this time.

Stunned at what I hadn't noticed.

The signs, that are so clear to me now,

but that I had no reason to recognize back then.

Heartbroken, that I hadn't known, 

but there it was. 

It was there with her, even then. 

Before I knew.

She was afraid.

This time, I saw it clearly. I had lived with it and experienced it with her for years now. The depth and reality of it no longer foreign to me.

The separation anxiety that led her to breakdowns. Barricading the front door so mommy wouldn't go to work. Screaming and clinging, begging us not to leave her for a weekend away. Nightmares that drove her to our room on a nightly basis until we relented to her sleeping with us indefinitely. On the nights she would brave her room, the way she would set up her stuffed animals - lining them around the bed, as a sentry, a protective force to comfort her and keep her safe. 

The memories of her so carefully placing each one in a row, in it's protective place next to her as she prepared for bed, flooded me with a cold shock. And I saw this old picture with a new perspective.

The smile of joy at how adorable she'd been with her stuffed animals, now replaced with a sobering and heartbreaking understanding that only time and experience could give me.

She was afraid.

And I hadn't known it.