Getting to know you - April 14

[Ann]

Thinking back on your childhood, what one event stands out that made you really afraid?

[ginnyde]

My Father died when I was 7 years old.

[myrnalu]

The day i stepped on a garter snake with bare feet.I just started running.My brother had to catch me and i was shaking so bad i couldnt tell him what happened until i calmed down.Been scared of snakes since that day.

[dchurchi]

When our house caught on Fire July 2nd 1971.

I will never forget running out of the house

and seeing our roof in flames. shortly after

we go out the roof collasped right where we were

sitting playing the board game Trouble. How ironic

is that. I feared fire for the longest time.

[Carleen]

When I was about 5, I went to the park with my older brothers and sisters on a sort of grey but eerie calm day. While there, emergency sirens started going off. There was a tornado sighted. I remember running home the 8 blocks in a sudden torrential downpour with lightening cracking all around us. It seemed like it was striking the trees directly around us. I remember crying because I couldn't find shelter under the trees because that is where it is dangerous, and I didn't want to be in the open either. It was a very scary 8 blocks.

Funny, after being in that, I still love thunderstorms today.

[cindi o'h]

Dad was a teaser and told us kids that there was a pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow. After a brief storm, there was a glorious rainbow and my sister, a year older than me, started to run and run until she was almost out of sight. I knew that there wasn't a pot, but she didn't. Dad didn't call her back, he just kept laughing. I was so afraid that she wouldn't come back...

Cindi o'h

[dadstimeon]

My father died when I was 9 of a heart attack. My mother had to raise 3 children on her own. She did not (most women where not in the workplace at the time) work (had to get a job) and we had to move also. I always had a tremendous amount of respect for my mother and what she had to endure on her on. Taught me the meaning of adversity at an early age and not to take life or things for granted which has gotten me this far today. My battle with lung cancer pales compared to what my mother went through. This is why I have a tremendous amount of respect for the caregivers here who have a loved one battling lung cancer and are still raising a family--that is certainly a monumental task under enormous stress.

[Ann]

This one is an easy one for me. As some of you know, I was raised in the beautiful hills of Tennessee. The people there had some very different ways of doing things during the time of my childhood. One of these things involved funerals. It was very common for the body to be taken to a mortuary, then brought to the home for the viewing, then to the church for the funersl. The process seemed to last for days. When the body was at the home, family members always stayed up, round the clock, with the body. There was a lot of food and people would talk all night. Well, my great aunt passed and was brought back to her home. We had to stay overnight. When I fell asleep on her sofa, my mom and dad joined the others in the dining room. I woke up and the first thing I saw was my Aunt Dora's body in the coffin. I was in the room alone and was too afraid to move. Funny...I can remember that night like it was yesterday.

[Debi]

I have no time recently to do anything but this post struck a nerve..

When I was about 8, I was sitting at the kitchen table one evening, it was dark out. My dad was at his night job, and my mom was in her bedroom. My dog was sitting on the floor next to me and all of a sudden, she started whining, whimpering almost, really soft. I looked ahead of me at the back door where she was looking, and the door knob was slowly turning, left, stop a second and then right, stop a second, and then repeat. The door was locked and it was as if someone was testing it, I remember just being frozen, and watching it turn, really really slowly for what seemed an eternity. That was the only time in my life that I remember being SO afraid that I couldn't move, I couldn't scream, I tried to find a voice but didn't have one.. the hair just stood up on the back of my neck and I sat there, terrified. There was a sense that there was something, someone evil on the other side of that door, the dog even sensed it, she never even barked, just sat there whining. When the twisting of the doorknob finally stopped, somehow I got out of my chair and ran back to my mother- I still remember the effort it took to get out of my frozen state.

It still scares me to this day when I mention it, I get that hair raising feeling. It was the early 60s and alot of people didn't lock their doors back then. I can't and don't want to even imagine what might have been if we were one of those people.

[Don M]

seeing a nun for the first time

Don M