Strangers in the Night

Fortunately, Ray warned me about this sight when we went to bed. This is the first thing I saw when I opened my groggy eyes at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Even with the warning it still startled me.

When my Mom was 17, she lived alone with her mother in a little house in town. She talked about that life sometimes, and some of the stories made a big impression on me. One in particular was how she could always see the shadow of tree limbs on her bedroom wall.

One night, a man's hat appeared in those shadows. That young girl kept her wits about her, and after the first wave of silent panic, she yelled, "Mom! Get the gun!" The hat disappeared.

My wits are no where to be found when I'm groggy. We went to a roping in Leadore when Clayton was 3 months old. We had a half-cab camper to stay in, but the ranch owner graciously encouraged us to stay in a vacant house with beds and a bathroom where we would have more room. As a nursing mother with diapers to change, I wasn't about to let my favorite cowboy turn down that offer.

It was dark when we got there. We found a bedroom that had another little room on the side, where the baby could sleep. We left the bedroom doors open. A tall piano sat endwise to our door. Across the living room from the piano was the main picture window. Ray carefully set his cowboy hat up on top of that piano.

In the middle of the night, I had to get up to take care of the baby. There was enough moonlight coming in that I didn't bother turning on any lights. I got the baby fed, changed, and back to sleep, and headed back to bed.

Coming around the corner into our room, I came face to face with a dark, shadowy man standing in the doorway across the room. I wish I could say I did the motherly thing and ran back to protect my child. But no, I followed my first instinct of self-preservation, let out a blood-curdling scream, and dived under the covers to put my hero between me and that man.

Poor Ray. I about gave him a heart attack. I definitely woke him up and got his blood pumping. He had enough sense to turn the light on before getting caught up in my panic.

I got him again just a few years ago. We were five miles from the nearest neighbor, and there were NO lights in our viewshed. I never hung curtains in our bedroom because we were on the second floor. The attached garage was just off the end of that upstairs room, and beneath, there was a wrap around porch where you approached the front door. There was a motion-activated light on the front of the garage.

That light came on one night as I was just getting to bed. I went over to the window just in time to see the shadow of a tall, hunched-over figure walking quickly and smoothly to the front step. I didn't have my glasses on, but I could also see something heaped in the middle of the driveway--like a backpack or something.

This time I didn't scream even though my heart was in my throat. I woke Ray up, and ran around in the dark locking all the doors. Ray couldn't see anything, but he gave me the benefit of the doubt, and dutifully got his gun and a flashlight, and went outside. He couldn't find anything except the little propane tank he'd set out in the driveway so he wouldn't forget to take it down to get it refilled.

Backpack theory shot down.

As we stood on the porch trying to figure out exactly what I'd seen, Dixie, my cat, walked across the garage entrance to come see what was up. The light hit her in a way that blew her shadow up to gigantic proportions, and the tall figure I'd seen approaching the front step was nothing more than the shadow of the silly cat's upright tail!

Oh dear. It's a good thing I'm too young to be senile. I remember my dear, hardworking grandmother as she approached her 90's. She would see men out by the gas tank. She would invite me for lunch, and then boil two packages of home-grown frozen peas. Yum. Then she'd forget to turn off the burner.

My dear children--and me--are already praying that the Rapture comes before they have to deal with me should I live that long. And still, my favorite threat to Clayton is that I'm going to come live with him when I get old. Scares him to death!

Maybe I'll learn to behave before then. In the meantime, I think I'll just take it one day at a time.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34

My favorite cowboy taking out the boogey-man
 

Boyd & Ray making sure we didn't bring in any duds