“Aaaarrr!’
The sound came from the baby monitor as I sat eating corn chips up in our office while watching Silo season 3 on my computer.
Baby’s awake. Time was 10.50pm.
I quickly washed my hands and rushed down the stairs. As I opened the door of my bedroom and the cold air from our air-conditioning enveloped me instantly.
I had forgotten to adjust the air conditioning I had put baby down that night, and the room was too cold for comfort.
‘Arrhhhh!’
Went my baby again as he writhed around in his sleep swaddle, trying to roll in his semi awake state.
I slid down next to him, and as he nursed I smelled his head, and kissed his sleepy forehead.
In the dark cold room, there was another sound other than the hum of our air conditioning compressor and the soft breaths coming from my almost 5 month old.
“Chirp… chirp… chirp…”
It was the very clear, loud and distinct sounds of the crickets outside our room, in the damp grass on the grounds next to our window.
And it brought to mind a memory of an event over a decade ago, before I had my kids, and when I was also laying in the same bed but only with my husband, late at night.
In the year 2015, about 3 years after we were married, I had been taking daily hormone pills as part of my regiment to treat my migraines.
A bit of backstory on this, I started getting migraines when I was 16 years old, and they were so bad that each episode of it would cause nausea, vomiting and a severe pounding headache that could only be cured with a long sleep or with strong pain medications.
Since the episodes back then were occurring every month, I had decided to seek a treatment plan to manage or hopefully, permanently cure me from my migraines.
Unfortunately some of the daily medications I took as part of the treatment eventually caused me to become depressed, lethargic and made me couldn’t sleep at night.
It came to the point that the insomnia was so bad that I had to take anti-depressants to calm myself down enough to fall asleep.
It was a rough time in my life, and I even almost quit my engineering job back then as I couldn’t function at work. My poor husband was my caregiver, being with me as I took medical leave on some days to rest at home upon the advise of our company doctor as I tried to work through my emotions and depression.
On one of those nights, I was again staring at the fan above our bed, and I knew time had passed but I couldn’t fall asleep. I think it had rained earlier that day, and the sound of crickets outside was overwhelming to me as my mind focused on everything else except sleep.
An hour or two passed, and then I turned to my sleeping husband, and woke him. It must have been 12 to 1am at night.
“I can’t fall asleep. The sound of the crickets are too loud for me” I said.
My sleepy husband got up, and went out of our room.
The next thing I heard, was the sound of an aerosol can being used outside, and then I knew he was using our insecticide on the crickets.
‘Pssssst … pssssssttt’.
It went on for a few minutes.
Though depressed, I felt surprised, partly horrified, and mostly grateful, that he was wiling to go to that extent of combating the poor crickets so that me, and him, can go to sleep.
The noise from the crickets eventually stopped. I felt bad for them.
My husband came back in, and I tried to sleep. I think it had helped.
My depression went on for another 3 weeks, and then it eventually tapered down and went away after I finally stopped taking my daily dose of Sibelium and Fluvoxamine pills, which apparently had also affected my serotonin levels thus causing insomnia.
Back to present day, after my baby had fallen back to sleep, I went out of our bedroom, found my husband in the kitchen and I hugged and kissed him. He was surprised but welcomed it.
“Dear, I remember the crickets from before we had kids, it was late at night and they were loud like now too”
My husband then turn to me, smirked and and said “Ahh, then you can remember what I did to them”
I am thankful that I had overcome that difficult period of my life, and I am very thankful for my husband, who had supported me through it. Unfortunately some poor crickets were harmed during this stint.
But whenever I hear crickets now, I am reminded of my husband’s love and care. Till today, I enjoy listening to the sounds of crickets outside when its late at night.