She was very small the first time she remembers it happening…tiny  hands clutching the larger and stronger hands of her mother.   She wore a dark green woolen coat.   Her head was covered with a small  bonnet sewn from the same material,
trimmed with fur and tied around her chin.  Over it all she wore a white  sheet.  It was her first Halloween  and she carried the pillow case all children used in those days.   In her memory the day was darkening.

The house was small with a  covered front porch and a sidewalk leading up to the front door.   There were no welcoming lights.   The fence was hidden by bushes –neatly trimmed but high enough she  couldn’t see over it.  The metal  gate squealed when her mother pushed it open.

Fear clutched at her.  Her little heart was racing and her  hands trembled.  She doesn’t  remember the words she used, and perhaps she used none.   Only the body language and the tormented eyes of a child filled with  fear, begging her mother not to send her up that darkened pathway.   She had no words yet to explain what she saw or to even understand that  not everyone saw as clearly as she did...especially not adults.

Her  mother smiled at her fear.
“It’s all right sweetheart.   All you have to do is walk up and knock on the door.   They’ll give you a treat for your bag.
Wouldn’t you like that?  I’ll be right here behind the  fence.  It will be OK.   You go ahead now.”

Trembling and looking back for the mother she  no longer saw behind the dark branches of the hedge, she made her way up the  path and climbed the interminable steps to the front door.

Knock, knock,  knock on the door with tiny hands gripping her bag.

And just as she had  seen, so it all transpired. The  door flung open, an old man with angry eyes and a beard yelled at her to go  away, shoved her so hard  she  tumbled down the 4 steps leading to his house then went back in – slamming the  door behind himself.

Her mother rushed out from behind the bushes and  scooped her up but the damage was done.  

Trust is a fragile thing.   That small child did not learn she was special that day, protected and  loved by forces beyond her understanding.   She learned instead that mothers and strangers are not always to be  trusted and do not always speak the truth.  It took many years for full  understanding to come. Ever after  that day though, a picture would come, a voice would speak and, more often than  not, she would listen.

Her parents told stories of when she was even  younger…a toddler who wandered away from the yard and sat in the middle of a  dusty street while a convoy of military  trucks passed by  on  their way to the base after  maneuvers.   There she sat, untouched, until a neighbor spotted her and, realizing  this was no bag of garbage lying in the street, picked her up and took her  home.  The time she and a cousin  climbed into her father’s car and, he steering and she, operating the gas pedal,  maneuvered the car around in a circle in the back yard. You doubt  me?  Well – the story came from my
mother and who am I to question her memoriesJ.  Luck?  Perhaps, but I prefer to think there was a body of angels looking over  me.  They still do, thank God.  Life would not be the same without  themJ 

Did I  ALWAYS listen?  Of course not!  But I did learn about consequences.

At age 8, I didn’t listen the day my father told me to climb the clothesline  pole in a safer way than one I always used. He was wrong.   They were right.  A broken  arm and deformed elbow to the present day are reminders that others cannot
always know what is right for you no matter how well-intentioned they may be or  how much they may love you.

At age 14, I listened the day they showed me  being thrown from a ladder to a cement floor and descended just as a group of  adolescents flew through the very door I had been perched above seconds  before.

It was my first date. I was 15, he was 18, cute and I had never  been what you would call a “popular” girl.  I wanted to impress.   They told me not to get into the car after the movie but it’s a hard  thing for a teen-age girl with her first boyfriend to say “No” for no earthly  reason that she can explain.  We  didn’t make it a half block down the road before my face was smashed against the  dash of the car.  Our driver had  rear-ended the vehicle in front of us.   The physical damages were slight.   The embarrassment as I faced the local gendarme to explain why I was  there was far greater…and to face my parents…well you can only guess.

So  here I am.  15, I hear things, I  see things and I feel things.  I  cannot kill a fly.  Watching my  brother and his friends drowning out gophers makes me physically ill.  Seeing someone else being taunted,  teased and /or bullied makes my skin crawl as I feel their embarrassment and  pain.  Do I always stand up and  speak my mind?  I am a child and I  am human.  Sometimes I do and other  times I suffer along with them in silence.  I have no idea not everyone experiences  the world in the same way I do but I also do not share these things with others.

Why? 

that answer came much later in my life and, in time, I will share the why bit by bit...the way I learned it:)