My Memoir – Where the Dark Things Grow
**The following is part of my memoir. Please go to this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.”
— Isaiah 43:2
A little girl with reddish-brown pigtails stood at the window, clutching her stuffed bunny as she gazed out over Edwardsville, Pennsylvania. From her child’s perspective, their apartment seemed impossibly high—perhaps a thousand stories tall. Beside her, her mother stood frozen, eyes wide with dread, the reflection of colossal orange flames flickering in her pupils.
Miles away, where the fire raged against the night sky, the little girl’s father was among the volunteer firefighters battling the inferno. Fear gripped her small heart as she wondered if he would come home or if the fire would take him away forever. Her mother’s stillness said everything. The little girl didn’t yet understand prayer, but that night she sent wordless pleas into the smoke.
That was the first time she ever felt the weight of death. And over four decades later, she never forgot it.
I was born and raised in Arkansas, but for a short time, my family lived in Pennsylvania, where my dad’s side of the family was from. My memories from those early years are scattered and hazy, but a few stand out, like slides on an old movie reel, as if time itself wanted me to remember.
There was the “candy train” that crawled along the tracks each week, tossing sweets to the children who waited, barefoot and eager. There was my stuffed bunny, the one I clutched tight when I slept under the coffee table, feeling safe in my little cave. I remember fire engines and the mustached men who laughed with my dad, the kites we flew together, the snow piled higher than my head.
Those were good memories. But the night of the fire—and the fear that my dad might never return—was my first encounter with a kind of fear that would follow me into adulthood: the fear of losing someone I loved.
Another memory from Pennsylvania left a different kind of mark. I was sitting on the floor, holding a baggie of cookies, when my parents started to argue. I don’t remember what it was about, just the sharp sound of my dad’s voice and the sudden blur of movement. The cookies flew across the room and hit the wall. I sat frozen, crumbs at my feet, confused and afraid of my dad for the first time.
Why is Daddy treating Mama that way?
That was the day I learned that domestic abuse was “normal”. It contributed to my string of unhealthy relationships later in life and exposed me to alcoholism.
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