Article August 10, 2020 ISSUE

Remove the disguise, find healing

Tony Martin

One day close to Halloween, my family and I were walking around the shops with some friends who have two boys, the younger of whom was three years old. When he saw all the Halloween costumes, masks, and decorations in the shops, he became increasingly unsettled by their scary appearances.

It didn’t help when his older brother slipped into a mask and costume. But the situation was quickly resolved when we proved that the boy’s fears were groundless—that it was, in fact, his brother inside the ghostly costume. The reality had been hidden, albeit temporarily, by a disguise. Once our friend’s child could see beyond his brother’s disguise, his face beamed with happiness once more, and I thought, “What a wonderful lesson there is in this!” I reasoned that if we, as adults, dealt with frightening circumstances the same way we deal with stories of monsters and ghosts, then the fear would cease to impress us.

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