Grandma's story

Eleanor Young Clapp

When I was a little girl, I had a scary game I used to play. After I had been put to bed at night and the door was closed, the only light in my room came from the streetlight outside. It shone through the leaves of a big oak tree just outside my window and made leaf patterns on my bedroom wall. When a breeze rustled the leaves in the tree, it made my leaf shadows dance. I was glad for this light because with it I could see all around the room.

But once in a while, just to entertain myself when I couldn't get to sleep, I would let myself see pictures in the leaf shadows—a face or an animal. When the breeze blew, it would make the face open and close its mouth or the animal wag its tail.

Now, most of the time I remembered that I had a pretty room with pink wallpaper. I loved that old oak tree and the cheery streetlight. But once in a while when I had let myself see lions and tigers or the craggy face of an old witch shaking her broomstick, I would become frightened. If I didn't correct this scary picture by remembering that it was made up only of leaf shadows, I would have to call out for my mother to come and turn on the light in my room. Then, of course, all those creatures disappeared immediately because no tree shadows could stay on the wall with the big light on overhead. Mother didn't have to say, "Now, you lion, you go outside!" There wasn't really any lion there. She didn't have to say, "Madame Witch, you are scaring my little girl. Will you please leave?" No, the only place that lion or witch ever existed was in my own imagination, and I really had control over that.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

For many years I had nasal difficulties, which...