A whimper.
So small. Slipped under the door and drifted down the hallway just above the worn wooden floor. So soft. You’d hardly notice it unless you tiptoed down the hallway and leaned in close… pressing your ear against a door frequently closed.
A whimper.
Standing in the room now, up against the closed door. You follow the sound with your eyes, follow the wall with the closed door, not daring to move for fear of being seen and scaring him deeper into the cave. In the corner at the opposite end of the wall with the closed door, you see the cutout of the closet, the doors long since removed. No clothes hang from a metal rod. Rather, shelves hold books and toys and whatever else the bear cub has gathered to him.
You remember another time… a younger time… when you were here. Standing then in the corner in front of the closet, in front of the North-facing window. Looking across the room, you remember the bear cub crying in a crib… standing… reaching… wailing. The door, then half open, revealed a woman standing in the hall… half-in, half-out. The mother? A sister? It’s hard to tell… her image fading in and out like a spectral apparition… Was she real? Was she even there? No… not really… half-in and half-out… in all the wrong ways.
The bear cub cries and reaches… screaming… his legs do a little bouncing motion like he’d leap out of the crib if he could… and yet, strangely, their real purpose seems to punctuate his cries… his attempts to get her attention… why is she just standing there… her face, her mind, her heart conflicted. Her energy… her being… her soul pulled back. Can it really be this fucking hard… half-in, half-out. And then gone. Whatever parts within her struggling, holding her at the half opened door, half-in and half-out, clearly one had won out. A choice was made to turn away. Perhaps she simply lacked the capacity… her own nervous system dysregulated. Very adult observations that do not occur to the bear cub. Perhaps it was the kindest choice… better to walk away than let the anger out. Better to walk away than burst in, eyes glazed, voice shrill, hands… hands are very adept for slapping, shaking, silencing. Yes, perhaps the kindest thing to do was turn away. This time.
The bear cub still cries but something shifts. The tone, the pitch, the volume… ramps down. A slump in the body, pitching slightly forward against the rail. The legs give way… just a little… almost imperceptibly. His tiny fingers gripping the rail are all that holds him up.
And you watch this not moving… transfixed. An uncommon witness to a far too common scene. A non-corporeal witness… decades removed, witnessing a memory. And then he turns toward you. His eyes lock on you, his crying subsides, replaced with curiosity overshadowed by caution and perhaps a pinch of fear. But curiosity mostly… he looks at you with eyes filled… dripping with curiosity.
Him seeing you is like a slap in the face awake.
Wait.
The thoughts turn over in the mind the way an engine does in the winter… slowly… sluggishly.
Wait.
Like that still silent time before the dawn when the sky has lightened and you can anticipate… you can feel the light about to slip… to break… to burst along the line of the horizon. Like waking from a dream you struggle to realize you are here… you are real… and so damn slowly your witness becomes agency.
Wait.
I can hold him. I can pick him up. And so you move across the room quickly… with the same energy and motion you recall from another time when you’d build snow dams to hold back the water flowing down the gutters along the street which would inevitably give way—under pressure—allowing the water to surge forward. And you surge forward, across the room, to the crib, with the curious bear cub who lets you pick him up… who clings, his fingers gripping you with the same intensity the rail felt… his sloppy wet face against your shoulder. His cries now reduced to a soft whimper.
A whimper.
And now you are back behind the door… looking toward the cutout of the closet… In the corner at the opposite end of the wall with the closed door… the cutout of the closet, the doors long since removed.
You move so slowly… slowly forward and pulling slightly away from the wall… the wall across from where the crib used to be.
You catch with your eye just a shoulder of the small bear cub. He sits in the corner of the closet turned bookshelf… the doors long ago removed… a perfect little cave… a cozy corner for the little bear cub. He holds a book with more scattered about the floor of the cave. And though he looks at the book, the eyes are glazed… whatever world the book reveals, he is only halfway there. Half-in and half-out.
A whimper.
I see you… Little one. I hear you, buddy.
I know it hurts. I know you’re confused. I know you’re waiting… wondering. Where are they? Why aren’t they here? Do they even notice you’re all alone?
They say all the right words… the right words… but they are just echoes bouncing off the walls and down the hall with the closed door… no one to receive them… half-in and half-out.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, across from him… The little bear cub… I simply watch. I get it buddy. Their words meant nothing… you felt them but you needed to feel them. To be embraced… not by words but by a real fucking human… you want to be wrapped in arms and blankets not vague promises and empty excuses.
You want to know that you’re real… that you’re matter… that you matter… that your presence matters… makes a difference. That you’re wanted and valued… just as you are.
Their inconsistency leaves you baffled… half-in and half-out… And so you explore the impact you have… trying so desperately to figure it out, with the diligence of a researcher set out to prove a noble theory you observe, you interpret, you categorize, you analyze. There must be a missing piece here… if you try just a little harder… if you can just fucking figure it out it will all make sense because after all, that’s the worst part… not understanding why… the uncertainty… and all those fucking stories you create that rush in to fill the void the lack of understanding leaves behind. Oh, those fucking stories…
Not content to witness, you’ve gotten good at experimenting… very sneaky… very clever little bear cub. So you read them… why read books when you can read people… so much more deliciously complicated… and yet… so few happy endings.
Read the signs bear cub… listen to the tone of voice… listen for a wisp of disapproval or disappointment… the rise of anger… listen to how loud the door closes… how heavy are the footsteps walking down the wooden hall toward the closed door. Listen to how they talk about each other when they think you’re lost in one of your books… but really… half-in and half-out.
And watch bear cub… watch them all… learn to read the eyes, bright wide open, sharp and squinty… filled with warmth reaching toward you… or cold and absent… half-in, half-out. Read the stiffness in their bodies… the absence of their presence… the lips pursed tightly together… the moving toward then back again… happy to see you one moment… indifferent—or worse—the next.
And you become an expert in manipulation… you learn to get what you want because, really, they did become predictable. And you became the good one… the sweet one… the funny one… momma’s favorite… the only boy… the spoiled brat… the absent one… the quiet one… the available one… until you became so adept at being who you thought they needed you to be that you became no one at all.
You have been waiting a long time for them… half-in and half-out. It took a long time bear cub but I have come back for you… I have come back to retrieve you. I have not forgotten… I have remembered how much you matter, I want you and I want your curiosity, and wonder, and awe, and playfulness, and innocence. I choose you because you matter to me.
Slowly… so slowly the bear cub lifts his gaze from the pages of the book… his eyes coming back into focus… slowly… so slowly his head turns… rotates… rises until your eyes meet… and he is all the way in.
In IFS, younger parts of us can remain caught in old moments as if they’re still happening. This is what retrieval (and in many cases, self-parenting) has looked like for me: the Self returning, staying, filling the needs that Others couldn’t… and bringing the little one back into the present.