When I was 7 or 8, I was outside my house playing with my Chrissy doll...I heard the car drive up and I knew my "dad" was home and would be drunk and mean....I did not want to hear him, listen to him or smell him...So I took off with my doll and went to a playground (was it by my school?) not sure, but I was on the swing set...Before long, I saw my "dad", in his car, driving towards me...he was looking for me...I had left without telling anyone...
He saw me, I took off running...I was so scared, if he had had to come looking for me, I was in serious trouble...why? I don't remember....but he was following me in the car and I thought in my little head he was trying to run over me....so I ran until I saw the cemetery....the Jordan Height Family Cemetery...the gate was chain locked but I squeezed through....I could hear him cussing and swearing and breathing...
I was so scared...but then I heard the voices "over here, over here", like a chorus of small children loudly whispering and running beside me...I ran to where they told me. I hid behind a old Tombstone, the oldest in the park...Robert Height's tombstone 1826-66.
Source: Findagrave.com
My "dad" could not see me, and he could not get into the cemetery..so he left to look for me elsewhere or to just wait until I came home....I stayed gone until dark, until I figured in my head he would be passed out drunk....then I walked home...
I knew I would be in trouble...and if I had my doll with me, he would take it and destroy it as punishment...he did that to everything I played with...I couldn't let him destroy Chrissy, so I left her behind that tombstone, I left her with Robert Height.
I went home, my mind is a blank of what happened once I got back home....I have no memory...yet...but like all my memories it will come back to me....I do know that at some point I went back to that cemetery. My Chrissy was still there...I got her back, took her home and hid her in the go-go boot in my closet....I protected Chrissy from him, as she has been protecting me....
That is when my cemetery love started...I went to other cemeteries in the area, I listened to the whispers in the breeze...I found that I could hear the dead children's voices, the really old people's voices, the ones that died centuries ago...I hear them....am I schizophrenic? NO...I only hear the voices in the cemeteries, and not even all cemeteries...I cannot discern what they are trying to say......but I hear the distinct form of words in whispers, but I can't quite make it out....but instead of getting frustrated because I don't know what they are trying to say, I relax, their whispers relax and soothe me...
I only remember hearing and understanding what they were saying, the one time...when I was running for my life...in my mind, those voices guided me to a place "dad" could not see me nor get into....they led me to a safe place "over here"....the cemetery, my safe place...
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