I can still remember the fear and confusion (May '07)

I can't adequately describe the feeling, but I can recall it like it was yesterday.

Waking up in the dark to hear the phone ringing, the front door opening and shutting several times, loud voices from downstairs, and the lights. I was so frightened by the lights. Red and blue strobes flashed into my window from the driveway below. I heard the police radios blaring, the sound bouncing off of the house next door in a maelstrom of amplification and chaotic noise.

I remember getting out of bed and running down the stairs. I remember feeling shaky with nerves--most of my anxiety rooted in the thought that something had happened to my mom or my dad, and some of the anxiety rooted in fear that I would get in trouble for being out of bed.

My world at this point--and for years to come--was a safe place. My worst personal trauma came from fear of bullies or anxiety about not fitting in with my peers. Those are legitimate concerns for a first or second grader, but in the grand scheme of things, my life was an idyllic and sheltered place. My life was what life should be for a child of that age. I knew no fear that couldn't be faced by mom or dad, and I knew no real fear from my mom or my dad. I had shelter, I had security, and I had safety.

When I came down the stairs that night I had my first real encounter with the world outside of that safety.

There was a woman I sort of vaguely recognized sitting on the living room couch. She was weeping openly. There was a policeman talking to my dad, and my dad had an unusually grave look on his face. My mom was sitting with the woman and mostly just holding her while she talked to her about things I couldn't grasp. There was another person in the room as well. She was my age, give or take a year, and she was sitting in one of the child-size rockers in our living room, holding a doll and rocking back and forth in a very intent and rhythmic way. She seemed to be focusing on the rocking, rather than on anything going on around her. I think we might have even known each other from the nursery at church. We played together sometimes, moving characters around on the felt board or pushing around that Fisher-Price toy with the popping marbles that was supposed to be a vacuum cleaner or some such. We might not have even been in kindergarten yet, and girls were no different than boys at that age. It would be some time before I learned of gender differences and attendant concerns. She was not nearly so lucky.

I think her name might have been Jessica.

My mom noticed me on the stairs. My stomach tightened in concern about what she would say, coupled with a fear amidst all of the unknown and confusion that surrounded us. My mother didn't even seem to notice the hour. She told me to come down and to bring Jessica up to my room so that we could play with my toys. I still knew that something wasn't right, but as far as I was concerned, everything was shaping up to be okay. My mom and dad and a policeman clearly had everything in hand, and I got to have a friend over and stay up after my bedtime under official sanction. Everything was going to be okay.

When we got upstairs, everything wasn't okay. I didn't know why until years later, but even at that age I knew that something wasn't right. Jessica wanted to play "house," so we hung a blanket from the top bunk to make a door, and then we established roles. She told me to be the daddy and one of my stuffed monkeys was the mommy and she was the little girl.

Then she told me that I should take my pajama pants off and show her my "pee-pee," and that she would do the same, because that's the game that she played with her daddy. She said that was how the game started, but I knew enough to know that you don't show certain things to other people, and I said I wanted to play another game instead. I think we played with stuffed animals and trucks after that. It's crazy, looking back. Something "wrong" is suggested, and you just put that aside and move on. Sometimes I wish life was still like that.

Eventually we fell asleep, and the next day we woke up to our parents in the room saying that Jessica's daddy wasn't going to be around for a while, and that Jessica and her mommy were going to be living somewhere else for a little bit, and that if Jessica's daddy came back that they might be coming to stay with us again for a while.

I didn't know at the time that Jessica's mommy had been beaten and that Jessica had been molested. I didn't know that this would not be the last time that our home would be a safe haven for hurting and abused friends. I didn't know that the idyllic little town of Wakefield, RI wasn't so idyllic for everyone. I didn't know that some of my best friends lived in a fear and confusion far more serious and dire than anything I would ever face as a child.

I only knew a sense of security, and a sense that it was only right that our security should extend to others in need. I didn't know enough to be proud of my parents for what they did. I didn't know that my parents at times assumed personal risk by sheltering those in need. I only knew that when people needed help, we helped them, and that this was the way things should be. To this day, I'm really proud of may parents for that. I hope one day that others can be proud of me in the same way.

This was not the last time that I would awake to strobing police lights and the cries of shattered lives from downstairs, but I'll save that for another installment of the blog.

It's easy to be content in our own safety, and to rationalize the signs that all is not so well for our friends and our neighbors. It's easy to say that it's dangerous to get involved, or to excuse yourself by saying that there's nothing you can do. It's easy to turn a blind eye or to just close your ears to the cries. It's easy, but it will never in a million years be right.

Finally, you may or may not believe in a Higher Power of any sort, much less the God of Christianity, but that shouldn't keep you from seeing the relevance of this same message, as written 2000 years ago. Read Matthew 25:31-46. It has everything to do with this blog.