| Sunny Side Up October 30, 2002 �2002, Kathleen Gibson A child�s fear matters to God I am acquainted with a child�s fear�the kind we adults think is unreasonable. I lived it first, afraid of everything as a tyke�large dogs, witches, bombs. It didn�t help that the school librarian played dramatized tapes of horror stories to my grade two class. I hear to this day the creak of the swinging pendulum in Edgar Allen Poe�s tale. She closed the blinds, instructed us to put our heads on our desks, threatened to nail our tongues to their surfaces if we so much as whispered. She was joking, I�m sure, but I didn�t know that. That was when the nightmares began. They only stopped when the stories did, after I mustered the courage to tell my parents about what we did in library period. Yes, I am acquainted with a child�s fear. I still taste it, sometimes. My daughter had just turned ten when her nightmares began. I woke one night to find her at my bedside. Quaking. �Mommy, something�s in my room.� �What is it, honey?� �Something black, with red eyes.� We made the four step trip across the hall, hand in hand. I turned on the light and scoured the room, hunting for those red eyes. In the closet. Under the bed. On the ceiling. �There�s nothing here, honey. I�ll bet it was a bad nightmare. Hop back in bed and I�ll tuck you in nice and tight.� She smiled, more confident in the light. But her eyes were colossal pools of darkness, her face waxy white. I said a prayer, left her door open and laid awake myself. Remembering. It happened again the following night. And the next, and the next after that. The Preacher and I prayed with her nightly; finally made a bed for her beside ours, next to my side. I can still feel her small hand reaching up through the dark to clutch mine. We fell back asleep like that�for months, it seemed. One night she didn�t come. We left the mat beside our bed for a while, but she never needed it again. The nightmares had stopped. We thanked God that our daughter could sleep again. Years later she told me the real end of the story. Again she�d woken to the horror of those red eyes. Closer, brighter. But this time the glow of two white lights appeared beside them. The lights grew brighter, until finally she could make out two huge beings in white, positioned at each corner of the foot of her bed. �They were so big, Mom, they seemed bigger than the room.� The large black thing with red eyes vanished. The light beings were there every time she woke, for several nights. Their presence made her feel warm and safe and she fell asleep again without fear. One night she slept all night. She never saw her guardians again. I am acquainted with a child�s fear. I am acquainted with the God who can send angels to cure it. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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