Middle Years
Copyright© 2012 by JPM
Chapter 3
My aunt sent my sister some pictures from our childhood. Some were really good. Some brought out some memories. I noticed that none were from our time spent in hell. I say that now. As I do not think I conciously thought it at that time. They were true snapshots of our little family in various celebrations and holidays.
I can picture my siblings, and I, happily swimming in a pool. We were with our father at a nearby hotel. I cannot quite fathom the timing on some of them. Was this before we went to the shore? Or another summer afterwards? It really isn't clear and I've tried to visit that time but the feelings are raw. I really want to cry, and I think that I will. Perhaps that will open me up to some more of that darkness and I really do want it all in the light.
I still visit with the guilt at times. If I had been a normal child I would have ran home to mommy. I would have told her what those really mean boys had done to me. It makes so much sense looking down on the scenes in my mind. I know it is more the sense of guilt in not knowing if that little girl in the pit had been saved. Did the incident prompt her to find the courage to speak up to her own parents? Or did she bury it into her own secret, dark, hiding place?
I feel another interlude coming on. These thoughts are wanting to make it out onto the page. They want to come out into the light of day.
Industrial Valley Bank. Or IVB as it was known. The acronyms invade my solitude. I was working in the local library at the time. I do believe it was 1974. I was 15 at this time. I had gone to the bank to cash my paycheck. I can picture a passbook as the teller would have put it into the little printer to show my recent deposit. The running total on my savings account neatly printed on the page. I know I would have requested to keep out twenty dollars for spending money. It could have been less.
I can see the light turning green for me to cross the busy highway that cut through our little town. I can see the people on the opposite side begin to cross over as I did the same from my side. I can hear the screaming of brakes as a car, with a terrified young woman driver, stopped about 12 inches from my legs. I remember looking down at the front of her little car; then up into the car. She had flown through the red light. It appeared she was reading directions from the paper in her hand. I will never know what made her look up and realize she needed to stop. I nearly joined the statistics of pedestrian deaths due to distracted driving. This, my 2nd brush with death.
To read this story you need a
Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In
or Register (Why register?)