A Storm Was Just Beginning...

A Storm Was Just Beginning......

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

I wasn't feeling well yesterday evening.  I told Skip I was going to take a nap.  He suggested for me to take it on the couch, that way I'd be in the living room with him and the Pups.  We could hear the thunder and rain.... a storm was beginning.

I took several soft, colorful 'mini' blankets as I call them... placed them together.  You wouldn't believe how warm, cosy, comforting those 'mini' blankets are when you do this.  I placed my pillows just like I wanted them... promptly got on the couch, snuggled into those blankets, and almost... went to sleep.

Thunder... lightening... pouring rain.  For a few moments my mind went back to being a little girl living at Grandma Alma's house.  I was on her couch in the living room underneath a quilt.

I'm glad there wasn't a room in my view from our couch because I'd been afraid to look yesterday evening.  :)))  I did look straight ahead while I laid there... remembering.  I had gone back to the past.....

I felt afraid for the little girl in my mind... how she/me sat on one end of the couch tight to the arm of it.  Maybe pressed tightly to that arm made me feel safer... to have some kind of support.

Grandma's quilt was wrapped around my whole body... I was sitting 'Indian-style' on her couch, tense ... afraid of what I was going to see.  It wasn't 'if' I was going to see... it was 'what I 'knew' I was going to see.

In my mind... the thunderstorm was going on ... I am sitting there on that couch... seems like it was red vinyl, cold.  The quilt was between me and the vinyl.  I began to open the quilt 'just a little' so, that I could begin peeping out.  My throat felt like there was a lump of fear in it... it was.

I 'knew' it... there it came ........... rolling quietly out of that doorway of the bedroom... into the living room .........toward me!  It stopped as if 'it could see me'..... 'as if it was watching me'.  I felt fear in my whole body... I closed the quilt up quickly, sat there holding my breath!

I waited, I don't know for how long... I peeped out again.  I didn't 'just peep out'.... I very, very slowly opened that quilt just enough to see if... it was still out there.  It was!  I quickly closed the quilt again, feeling a new wave of fear over my little girl body.

I was so scared as I had in mind the vision of that .... big, blue ball of lightening... as big as a basketball... sitting there on the floor 'looking at me'.  I 'knew' it was looking at me.  Don't ask me 'why' I felt that... little girls can think ...anything.

I don't know, but... I do know..... 'why' I never called for help anymore when I was afraid.  I was becoming used to handling things on my own... what could Grandma Alma who was paralyzed, or George who was blind... do to help me?  I'd just been thrown into 'hell', I was nine years old.

So, I did the next best thing... I sat on that couch hidden underneath that quilt, frozen to the spot, I couldn't move for fear 'it'd get me'.

If I had turned my head to the left... I never thought of it... I would have seen Grandma Alma sitting in her recliner... George sitting in his old wooden, cane-bottomed chair in the next room beside her, talking.

I'm sure Grandma Alma could have seen me.... just the shape of a child sitting there on that couch... covered in a quilt.  She wouldn't have been able to see the terrible fear in that child as.. she sat there.  I never made a noise... I never cried out what my mind screamed... 'I'm afraid, please help me... I'm scared!'

I waited in fear, hoped when I looked back out from behind that quilt... that the blue-ball lightening would be gone.  I began slowly to open the quilt again to look ... to take a deep breath, my shoulders relaxing as I blew it out from my mouth... it was gone!

Skip was speaking to me... I abruptly came back to the present from the past.  He just saw lightening, he said.  I smiled, and acknowledged that we were getting quite a storm.  Yes, a storm was just beginning ..... not only 'now'... but, in my mind.