1956

The summer of 1956, the summer my dad almost died, is the time when I realized I could escape into a fantasy world when my real world was falling apart and became too painful. 

Left in my grandmother’s care

In the house that was my first home

Sleeping in the bedroom

Of early childhood

I was only nine

That summer – still a young child

I cry myself to sleep

Each night

Wondering what

The morn will bring

I wake each morning to the sound of Lady’s paws clicking on the hardwood floors that greet my bare feet as I get out of bed.  My grandma is awake, having fed and watered Lady and let her outside.  I wash my face, brush my teeth, and set forth to capture the day.  My play ranges from the front to back porch, basement, up the outside cellar stairs, and into the yard.  In nine more summers I will leave for college, but at age nine this is not a thought I can yet entertain.  So like don Quixote I set forth to tilt the windmills of my nine-year-old world.

With Lady as my faithful companion Sancho Panza we rode forth each day seeking adventure and leaving the fear of my father’s health far behind.  It only caught up with me when the adults intruded into this world I was creating; they did not know nor understand how fragile the structure of my world really was. How could they; they could not see, feel, or touch it.  It was my sanctuary and my salvation, so easily breached by their inquiries and concern, and so quickly reconstructed when they would ebb from my inner life.  

A world where I did battle with the illness that plagued my father and was a champion for my mother who accompanied him on his journey, and at night Lady and I would cuddle with each other to keep the dark fears away. These were formidable foes for a nine year old, and like don Quixote they required precise skills to do battle with them. 

In the dark of night, cuddled with Lady, they felt overwhelming. In the daylight these were things I could vanquish along with my faithful and trusted companion.  So we fought imaginary battles with imagined foes in the yards and with the trees in the neighborhood.  There were no windmills for my young don Quixote, so trees, bushes and grain elevators had to do.

In those moments with my faithful sidekick we were invincible, and it was then I realized the power of fantasy, creativity, and inner dialog.  I rode on an imaginary horse to the conquest of the images of my father’s illness and in that quest I was successful.  In truth he did survive the ordeal of his journey, and returned, but not the dad that left me weeks earlier. 

His physical return marked my emotional abandonment.  The powerful father of my early childhood returned a fragile shadow of the hero who had set out on this journey to save his life.  In Stockholm the Equestrian Games of the Olympics played out as I guided my imaginary pony on through the streets of a small town with my faithful sidekick Lady aka Sancho Panza.

 

There was safety in the world my mind constructed and it kept my frightening thoughts and images at bay.  It has taken me decades to remember the feelings of my nine-year-old self.  I have danced with these images but have left them on the dance floor as I moved on in my life.  “Too frightening”, I tell myself.  “Why disturb my memories with this long ago fear”, I respond, and so I dance away from embracing this unremembered part of me.  

This nine-year-old who tilted the windmills of my mind as each morning of my father’s hospital stay I set out with my dog to slay the dragons of the shadows of the nighttime.  She was a brave and gallant girl accompanied by her devoted dog into a world that neither understood nor trusted, but one that she had to navigate.  My learning how to navigate and survive this quest was the making of my first hero’s journey.  No longer stalked with fearful or disturbing images this is a tribute to the resilience of my being.