Ghosts, Witches & Mice

I was convinced that our house was haunted and this was reinforced by my Father.

A Victorian farmhouse is built of a collection of creaks, pops, and the sound of creatures inhabiting all corners.

Our Victorian farmhouse also had a small door into the crawl space of the house. It was about 3 feet square and was located in the wall at the foot of my bed. When my Father saw me peering around their shoulders the first time they opened the door (the same day I fell down the stairs) he turned to me and said, "That's where the witches live."

Whether he also planted the idea that the witches were going to open the door while I laid in my bed at night, pull me into the crawl space by my feet, and no one would know where to find me I can't say for sure. All I know was that I lived in mortal terror of the witches and practiced laying myself as flat as possible in my bed, feet turned completely in, head to the side so that it wouldn't look like anyone was under the covers.

Also in my large, but long and skinny, bedroom were the only "closets" in the entire house. I put the word in quotations because all they were was the frame of a closet - a wooden skeleton and two long rods interrupted only by a narrow passage to a narrow window. All of my parents clothing and coats hung from the one directly across from my bed. At night they became ghosts all lined up and watching me. Women and men all in a row mutely watching me.

I was afraid to get out of my bed. I would hallucinate that my Mom was standing in the doorway of my room and I would hoarsely whisper, "Mommy, I'm scared." but then I would look and she wasn't there.

My Father found these fears, along with my phobia of the mice that ran the house (despite my Father's best efforts to capture them in live traps and release them into the new housing subdivision where the rich folks lived) to be absolutely hilarious. He fed into them with his jokes, his sharing of my fears with friends and family as if it were a big joke.

How one could do this to a child? One of the hardest things for me as a parent is to see my children frightened of things that are either not real or can't possibly hurt them. It pains me because I know there are REAL things to be afraid of in this world and I can't decide if it is better to tell them about these other things now or let them find out the