A Close Encounter

I come from a long line of them, so some days I believe that I am wired like this and will remain so until my last breath.  While there are other times that I recognize a capacity to trust and detach from the outcome and live in the now.  Despite my efforts to overcome, I am a chronic worrier. 

The other day while I was driving my son opened the door for some reason and promptly closed it.  In a flash, I pulled him toward me so he would not get sucked out of the car from the vortex force.  Science and experience does not prove that this will happen in a motor vehicle going 25 miles per hour.  This fear is a childhood fear that I did not outgrow.   Driving through Scarborough marsh on occasion, the brackish water would flood the roadway.  Instead of closing the road, vehicles would be directed through the water.  My older sister or brother would hold me tight as I would simultaneously shriek and cower under the shield of their body.  I envisioned floating away to the ocean and my mother losing total control, being washed out to sea.  While some fears had little basis, they were real for me. 

There was a period of time, in my childhood that the next-door neighbor would babysit me along with her three children.  We would play toss with a small rubber ball, climb trees, ride bikes and hang out with the family dog named Sandy.  I had always wanted a dog, but my mother adored her cats.  Sandy would be nearby as we played, ever present and loyal.  It was a carefree existence really, but I grew to hate it following an incident that remains clear fifty years later.

One day, my babysitter got a phone call.  We all tumbled into the Rambler and soon I heard the sad purpose for our trip, Sandy had been hit by a car.  Sandy was dead.  We would pick her up to bring her home to be buried.  I remember a short ride in the car and then returning to the car to come home, I remember nothing in between. 

I remember closing my eyes tightly, because I did not want to see Sandy’s still, dead body.  The babysitter, despite pleading with her to allow me to sit in the backseat with a healthy distance between the dead dog and me, forced me to sit in the front seat with the dog at my feet.  I did not want to come in contact with death. My feet curled around on the car seat as I coiled making my body as small as could be.  A quick initial peek at the buff colored dog revealed just how close I was to the unthinkable.  Alive one minute.  Dead the next.  I do not know why I am afraid to view dead animals or to touch them. In my four year old self, did I worry about catching it?  Did I overhear a conversation about the health risks of touching anything dead?  Recently, it has only been my close experiences with my mother and father’s passing that I have been able to look at people that have passed. 

I am trying to overcome my fear.  I know that in my lifetime I will continue to encounter death and ultimately will experience it up close and personally.