The ungodly hours. · New Earth Community

The ungodly hours.

On February 12, 2026, I did something radical.

It would have been my sister’s 37th birthday.

I found her dead in October 2024. She died from an eating disorder and addiction (acidosis) — wounds that traced back to the same childhood sexual abuse I survived.

On her birthday, I refused to let the day pass quietly. I packed up my gong, my sound bowls, my chimes, and went to the mall. I carried a sign that read:

“Today was supposed to be my sister’s birthday.

If you’ve experienced grief or loss due to addiction, sit for a moment of sound with me.”

People stared. They slowed down. They read the sign. But no one sat. For thirty minutes, I held the frequency anyway. Not to cause chaos. Not to perform. But to honor her. To honor the grief so many people carry silently.

Then security asked me to leave. Not because I created disruption — but because it was private property.

Still, I did it. I told myself I would show up for her in this way — and I did. With both of my daughters beside me.

And tonight, I am awake writing this because of what I am still facing.

There are times when I just want to be left alone. Most of those times are when I’m woken up by my children during the ungodly hours of the night — the same hours when, for years, I was repeatedly woken up to being sexually abused.

That time of night still lives in my body.

Even now, being woken up can send me straight into fight-or-flight. My nervous system doesn’t ask questions — it reacts. I wake up alert, braced, heart pounding. And then the practice begins: breathing. Grounding. Trying to welcome regulation and safety instead of panic. Trying not to scream like the child who lost her entire childhood.

So here I am — awake, alert — doing my best to offer myself compassion. Because in these moments, I don’t just feel alone. I am alone. There is no help at this hour. No one to rock me back to sleep. Nobody to hold me. There never was.

So I sob — for the years of lost comfort. For the child who was never soothed. For the years I starved myself because I was too anxious to eat, too dysregulated to feel hunger as anything but danger.

Motherhood is wild in what it reveals. It brings you face-to-face with the parts of yourself you locked away so no one would see. The parts you buried to make other people comfortable. The silence you kept to protect everyone else’s ease — especially the ones who were supposed to protect you, but chose not to understand. So I stayed quiet.

And now, in the middle of the night, the quiet cracks open. The only thing I can do right now is write — and hope these tears soften into compassion instead of shame. I hope one day my children understand that when I say I need to sleep soundly through the night, it is not a preference. It is survival. It is healing.

Because there was a time when I prayed just to survive the night. And now, when I wake up, I am choosing to stay.

So here is to presence. To not being lost in the sensations, but found within them. To letting the child who wanted to scream finally be heard. To welcoming safety back into my body — slowly, fiercely, intentionally.

These are the silent places of deep healing that nobody talks about. The parts people are afraid to share. We live in a sick society — where the hands that harmed are shielded, and the children who survived are told to be quiet.

————

Thank you to whoever reads this,

Richele

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