8. Light in the Shadows

I was 10 years old when I began hearing voices, like ghosts speaking undecipherable words, muffled, and indistinct. The words, if that’s indeed what they were, would swirl in my brain. I would feel woozy and lose focus on my surroundings. I was aware I was experiencing something unexplained, and thankfully the duration of these events was short, maybe 5 minutes. These spells, as I would come to call them, are difficult to describe. The best I can offer is that it felt as though I was losing the anchor of my brain. Having no idea what precipitated these events,  I was profoundly frightened by what was happening.

I never told my parents about these “spells” as I was terrified they would not believe me or if they did, they would shuffle me away to a place where crazy people were locked in rooms with white walls. Most telling is that these spells only occurred while at home, never in the school classroom or say, on errands with Mom.

My father had an odd habit of tapping his finger. Dad would go so far as to say, “Hey, Bon, come over here and watch this” and he’d commence a rhythmic tapping with his index finger. I recall the day he repeated this annoyance and my brain began to swim and the murmuring voices made me so dizzy I thought I might faint. As though compelled by something outside of myself, I grabbed my father’s hand and said, “Don’t do this anymore. Never do it again.”  Dad was surprised and I perceived a flash of curiosity, but he stopped the infernal tapping and the spells began to recede. 

I learned that repetitive noises or low-frequency hums would precipitate the spells. I would move to another room which seemed to divert my brain. I learned that playing loud music would drown the sounds of moaning voices. I also learned to pray. I have no recollection of the prayer I brought before God. Perhaps my fear was prayer enough. The spells stopped. Just like that, they stopped.

I have wondered if there was indeed something wrong with my brain and that perhaps my father’s ridiculous tapping was setting off a seizure – or worse yet, I had inherited my father’s demons. Regardless of the source, I may have dodged a bullet and healed of whatever was leading me into a dark abyss. At 10 years old and alone in my fear, I believed it was God who had saved my life and I believe it today.

This professed healing of the spells did not lead to a Damascus Road epiphany. Yet a growing hint, a mere inkling of his presence made me think I wasn’t completely alone. That said, I didn’t dwell upon what may have been the resolution to a possible serious malady. I was just relieved and thankful the spells had stopped. I hadn’t thought too much about God until I prayed again two years later.

My paternal grandmother, Edie, loomed large in my father’s life. She had her tale of woe, a sad life story which she transferred to her son. We would visit my grandmother in her apartment in downtown Salt Lake City where she would regale me with tall tales of handsome sailors begging for her attentions. These visits would ultimately dissolve into tirades against my father, for what reason I failed to discern. Her words would leave him crying in the apartment hallway as my mom tried to console her damaged husband. We left Edie behind in Salt Lake City when we moved to Illinois but there were the weekly phone calls between her and her son, leaving my father emotionally shredded. My father had enough going on in his troubled mind, I decided, so one night I turned to God and prayed he’d grant my father peace through the death of his mother. I asked for the demise of the grandmother who kicked me out of the house when I was four years old, unheeding of my protestations and banging on the door to be let back in.

The afternoon following my prayer, Dad arrived home from work earlier than usual. He was wearing sunglasses. My father never wore sunglasses. I saw him slightly stagger. “Dad”, I asked. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”  He replied, “Edie died today.” My father was bereft and I was shocked. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, what have I done?” I moaned, “Daddy, I’m so sorry.” He had no clue I was apologizing for having prayed for the death of his mother.

I came out of the experience confused and deeply affected. I had prayed to God who should have known better than to place Edie’s life into my hands. I would mimic my grandmother on the day she locked me out of the house on Imperial Street. God may have run off the “demons” when I was 10 years old, but at the age of 12, I opened the front door of my life, threw him out, and locked the door. Many years would pass before I gave a second thought to God, who was beginning to form in the image of my father.

Looking back on these two prayer events of my youth, the first of which I thought God had done very well, the second I regarded as underhanded, I realize that despite whatever I thought about him, Light was always navigating the pathway of my shadowed life. Never once did God pound on the door of my life, begging to be let back in. No, I think he was patiently sitting on the front porch guarding my soul.

From shame in a 5th-grade classroom to the following years of confusion and loneliness, he waited and watched. He waited and stood by me until years later I would open the door and ask if he minded my sitting down beside him in peace.