I WAS LUCKY BUT... WHAT 'IF'?

BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES                                                                                                                                                                                                aka  GRANNY GEE

I woke up in the dark bedroom.  I was afraid... not knowing what I was afraid of at first.  I was a very frightened little girl.  My brother was still asleep.

I heard it again.  There was a sound on the window screen ... a scraping sound.  We had very nice screens over the windows... they had tiny ridges on them... one could see out, but... not in.  I laid there quietly, I held my breath.

I didn't hear it again.  I told my mama the next day... she walked around to our bedroom on the outside.... one could see where someone had stood there taking maybe a finger, or a stick to 'draw, pressing down the little ridges into curvy lines' to make the 'scraping' sounds I heard. 

That was my first memory of feeling fear when it became dark at night.  I never heard that sound again... there. 

I did hear footsteps outside my window when I was a young girl living in the mountains.  I was so naive... I had fell asleep on the couch with the tv on, curtains wide-open, and windows raised.  I froze in fear at first, jumped up to make sure the door was locked, turned the outside light on!  I ran to get the gun... and waited.  Thankfully... nothing happened.

I'd always lived in town where no one locked the doors, and at night-time everyone slept with their windows open.  I was living 14 miles from town either way living in the mountains.  It was scary at night-time ..there.  I'd never been left alone in my whole life... before.

There... I was always afraid, there were no nightlights like I was accustomed to growing up with... it was so dark at nights.  I remember one night I heard sounds outside ... I was terrified!  I was just a young girl all alone.

I grabbed my rifle after turning the lights out... I went to the door, opened it quietly, then.... slung the storm door open!  I raised my rifle and squeezed the trigger...

The storm door slammed back on me as I fired that gun straight up in the air!  Oh my God!  It hit with a force against the gun, cracking that glass right down the middle!

There was nothing I could do at the moment... so, I closed the big, wooden door and locked it.  I was shaking, my hands trembled... I felt faint.  I listened......

Just minutes later... headlights came up the driveway.  I was so afraid!  I was peeping through the curtain so, I could see who it was in the outside porch light.  Oh no!  It was a ..... deputy!  Oh, my God!  I've shot someone ...somehow.... though I shot straight up in the air.

I was so afraid!  That deputy came up on the porch and began to knock loudly!  I turned the light on inside the living room, and unlocked the door, opened it.

The deputy said 'do you know where 'so and so' lives?  I was so weak from relief when he said that!  I told him directions to where they lived. 

Strangely enough.... I never thought I could have told him I was so afraid, and that someone had been outside.  I was so used to 'fighting my own battles'... I was so used to not telling anyone anything.  I was only sixteen years old.  That didn't keep me from being ... afraid. 

Looking back through time... haven't you had times such as these... being afraid and 'knowing someone was really there!'... but, something 'saved you'?

These are times that one wonders 'what if'?  Really... what would have... or could have happened 'if'?  I might not be here now to ask this question 'if'......... whoever was 'there' ... for whatever reason wasn't deterred from their original purpose of being there in the first place. 

I was always afraid of the dark... I know 'bad' things can happen in the dark.  What 'if'?