The Lamp in the Storm

It was November of 1950, I was three and Nike was two.  We both remember as if the lights went out yesterday.  We were doing the kid thing of getting another glass of water.  Our father had not gotten home yet, not out of the ordinary.  

Mother came up the stairs warning, “ I’m going to turn out the hall light if you two don’t get back into bed.”  The lights flickered and there was darkness.  My stomach dropped, I was shaky, filled with fear. 

  “We promise if you turn the lights on again, we’ll get back in bed.  Please, please, turn the hall light back on.” 

There was silence interrupted only by some of Mother’s anxious muttering, “I didn’t turn the lights out. You know I would never really do that.  Stay there, I’ll be right back.” 

Nike and I stood with our water glasses in our hands in absolute darkness. We were terrified, wondering if Mother didn’t turn out the lights, who did?  

Our wonderings were cut short as Mother reassuringly returned with a brightly lit flickering hurricane oil lamp.  

She ushered us down the dusty wooden stairs to the dank dirt floored cellar where we three sat huddled clinging to each other, on our Radio Flyer sled.  

Neither Nike nor I knew what had driven Mother to urge us without explanation to that spot.  We knew nothing about feet and inches at our age, so it would have made no impression on us to know what Mother knew.  

We were in the middle of a hurricane, our house was only five feet from the brook and could very possibly blow or slide over the bank into the raging waters.  

Mother told us later when we were adults,“I was so terrified that night. I had two small children to protect and keep safe. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I kept preparing myself in my mind for what I’d do if the house began to slide.”

I thought when she told us that, she was kind of being a little dramatic, but we had some serious flooding from one hurricane in our area.  In my adult life, I frequently drive by a place where several houses just washed into the rumbling river. That could have been us. I can appreciate even more how stressed Mother must have been. 

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As we sat there wondering what the next thing Mother would have us do, we heard footsteps above us. In this day and age, Mother would have shushed us to be as quiet as we could be. We would have been shaking with a new fear.

However, that was not the case in the 50’s in our little town. Mother had a skill of dealing with any vagrants who came to the door.  

She was pretty sure it was our neighbor, Trudy’s father, anyway. She coaxed us back up the stairs to an empty dining room. Whomever it was had left. Mother motioned for us to return to our sled.

I was the first to sit on the top stair. There was a crack of thunder, a deafening thud which shook the foundation.  At first, I didn’t know what was crumbling all around me and covering my dark wavy hair. 

Frozen with horror, I barely heard Mother tell me, “It's just the plaster from the ceiling. You’ll be okay. You’re a very brave girl.”

She and I both brushed the chunks of plaster from my little three-year-old head.  Trembling, I cautiously sat down on one wooden stair after another. I held my breath until my little feet touched the cellar floor. My legs wobbled until I was able to sit  on the safe stability of the sled.

Lawrence, Trudy’s father, opened the door to the cellar and yelled down. Mother, no longer alone, breathed a sigh of relief and hurried us little ones back up the stairs.

She picked Nike up in her loving, shaking arms. Lawrence carried me across the yard to Timmy’s house, next door, also too close to the brook. 

I could not know that as I grew older, I would discover that this man whose arms I felt safe in, drank. I would experience his unsafe touching when he led me into the part of his cellar, which Trudy and I would call the rat cellar.

As we were carried across toward Timmy’s house. I felt wrapped in absolute stillness in the eye of the hurricane.  Only the loud grumbling of the brook could be heard.  The air was unusually still. 

The thing that struck me that night at Timmy’s house where we ended up, was how big the flashlights were. I’d never seen such big flashlights. 

Filled with a myriad of emotions, the strongest one was confusion. I looked up among the group of ghostly faces, trying to recognize anyone in the strange light of lanterns and giant flashlights. 

Searching, I felt alone within the crowd of grown-ups from our neighborhood. 

Then I spotted Timmy.  I had found him.  Things would be okay now that Timmy and I were together. We were so relieved to find each other in the excited group.  But even at three, I shivered, sensing danger, in the whispers. They were expressing their concerns about the house we had come to for support and safety.  It could just tumble into the brook.  

When Lawrence offered to have the three of us sleep the night at their house, just a little up the hill, and safely away from the brook, Mother gratefully accepted. I got to sleep with my dear little friend Trudy.  There was no buzz of conversation as at Timmy’s.  Everyone, worn out, hurriedly got under the covers and tried to sleep while the storm wore itself out.

Recalling the before of a storm may be difficult for anyone, but for me, I had never remembered there were so many trees growing in Trudy’s yard. They were now logs sunken into the muddy earth.  We stepped over one fallen tree after another to return to our house.  

I looked at Timmy’s house. It was still there. Now, did I dare look at ours? Was it going to still be where it sat or had it washed into that scary brook.  

I didn’t remember there had been two very tall elm trees growing in front of my house.  I may not even have noticed them that morning, if one of them had not crashed down onto the peaked roof of my house.