cement beds

 So sometime last night,  around 4 am,(I think) I woke up with a start....I was flooded with a memory.   So I am going to try and write about it.

There were two little girls and they were drinking juice.  One of the little girls dropped her glass and broke it and her juice went all over the floor.  The mom got mad...the little girl said that the other little girl made her drop it...which was not true.

The mother threw a plastic plate at her,(the little girl being blamed) hitting her on the leg, then she threw another dish at her...the little girl tried to say she did not knock the glass out of the first little girls hand, yet the mother called her a liar and continued to throw items at her, trying to hit her..because she could no longer physically strike the little girl because the little girl would fight back.  So the mom, threw dishes and stuff at her instead. The little girl picked up some of the dishes and stuff and started throwing it back at the mother, as hard as she could...this went on for a bit, then the dad came home.

The dad saw the commotion and sat on his big chair and told the little girl to take his boots off...She was scared, and he yelled at her to take off his "goddamn boots" and yelled at the mom to get him a drink....the little girl tried to take off one boot, but it had such long laces and she was taking too long...the dad pulled off his boot and threw it at the little girl, hitting her in the chest, and saying "see how easy that was, you are useless, can't even take a shoe off..."  Her chest hurt and she ran outside.   It was dark outside, night time, and she heard the dad yelling in the house and a few things get smashed on the wall or floor, she wasn't sure, but she started running.  The little girl knew of one safe place, the only safe place in the world for her, so she set off running for that place.   She heard him yelling to come back home, "right now"...but she kept running away....he got in his car and tried to chase her, but in her mind "he wanted to run over her and kill her" so she ran and ran until she came to her safe place.

She squeezed through the fence and ran into the cemetery.   He would not come in there, he never followed her into that place.   She sat up against a stone bed and eventually fell asleep.  She slept there all night long...no one came after her, no one cared she was all alone in that place...and that was fine.  She was safe.   She slept.  (the little girl has no memory of what happened when she came back home the next morning....)

She learned that was a safe place to sleep.  She could never sleep in her bed because of him...but sleeping on a grave was peaceful and she would dream good dreams.  Much of her days after that, when her mom would tell her to "get out of the house, go outside" that is where she went.  And she would take a nap, or she would talk to the sleeping people there.

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As an adult, I have always found peace, quiet and solitude at cemeteries.  I gravitated to cemeteries my whole life and could never really understand why, only that "no one bothered you, or talked to you" at a cemetery.  You are always left alone....Cemeteries were my safe place.   Even in VA, when I first got here, I searched out cemeteries and would go there often.   I still enjoy cemeteries, especially the older ones with centuries old headstones...I feel a kinship of sorts with the dead.  

But, as I have gotten safer here,  I have stopped going to cemeteries.  When I see them off to the side of the road as I am driving, I still feel a draw to go into visit..most times, I drive right on by.   I no longer need the safety of the cemetery.  My home is safe, there is no one there to hurt me, no one to show up that might hurt me...I am safe.   

The memory is not a horrific one, but it is a terrifying one for a small child, and the terror is overwhelming, even more so than the pain and bruises...injuries heal and disappear, terror stays forever.  Terror comes in a moment, a trigger, PTSD, it is fast and completely all consuming emotion in the mind...

When a neighbor started verbally attacking me for stuff my neighbors were doing, I felt that terror...when he started walking down my driveway, I felt that terror, when Kevin was walking out to confront the man, I felt terror.  I knew the man was mistaken and I had done nothing to deserve his verbal assault, but I still felt the terror.   And that terror made my safe place, unsafe.   After Kevin confronted him,  he has left me alone, but when I drive by his house, or go to my mailbox, there is fleeting terror in my head that he will be outside and he will assault me again....I don't know if that fear will ever go away....

So that is my memory....the aftermath of the sleep over at the cemetery...I have no memory of that....did I get into trouble, was I punished, did they even care that I stayed out all night at the age of about 6 or 7,  did I go to school the next day, or was it a weekend?  I just don't remember.   Maybe that part of the dream, or memory doesn't matter, or maybe it matters so much, that it has been taken from me....

S

sophee