There are moments in your life when you feel you are on top of the world and there are moments you feel like you drowned in the most bottomless pit of hell. Somewhere in between, there is life and the things that come along on your path to guide you to where you need to be!
The darkness was never my best friend. In fact, I hated the night with a deep passion and I would do anything to keep the lights on or to stay away from the dark as much as possible. I dared not close my eyes when night had fallen nor to turn off the light in the corner of my room. I did not feel safe in my room with the curtains closed and the night was master of the world around me.
I felt like the shadows were always creeping up on me, trying to wrap their tentacles around me to pull me into the fires of hell or maybe even worse, into my nightmares. The cold was making me shiver even when the heater was on, or the flames of the candles next to me shared their warmth to my room. Haunted, chased, pushed towards fear because of the demons that still roamed my mind from the past!
Sleep, something I did not get much during that time in my life. I had to go to school, to work at a later stage of my life and there was no way for me to catch some sleep during the days. I accepted this because I felt I could not change the way I was feeling toward the one thing that scared me so much. The darkness of the night!
Fear is something I never really understood nor could I place my finger on the real starting point in my own life where fear took over from me loving the long walks into the night, streets in silence, a world I enjoyed. This fear took away my power to enjoy everything that came after the sunset in the evenings; it turned my life upside-down in the worst ways. While the days seemed short, the nights were neverending.
The evil that roamed on my mind grew with every day that passed during those years. It sucked the energy out of my veins like a vampire or demon with sharp fangs and claws. I was not ready to face my fear, and I kept feeding myself more lies to convince myself that my angst was real. The more I told myself to be scared the more things I started to see in the shadows of the darkness.
Until that one particular moment in my life! That marvelous experience where everything changed for me.
Curled up under my blanket with my pillow pressed against my face, I stared into the darkness of the room until I finally fell asleep. In my dream I was running on the street, wearing a mask to hide who I was. As always, the demons knew who I was, and tracked me down. I tried to escape, but their sharp nails sliced open my chest, back and ripped off the mask. Panic turned me into a scared little mouse, and I kneeled down as if I was submitting myself to their powers.
I remember feeling this strange warmth covering my forehead when I lifted my head to look up at the demon before me. I was ready to meet the eyes of my nightmare again, but this time something felt different. The warmth turned into heat and started to spread all over my body. I could hear a heartbeat in the distance coming closer with every beat until there was this flash of bright light and I was pushed back into the nothingness of my dream. The next thing I remember is hearing a voice.
"Open your eyes and look at me." I recognized the voice, but I could not place it. I opened my eyes, and I was 100% sure that I was awake. A warm hand put on my head, and slowly the fingers started to trail a path over my cheek while piercing eyes looked deeply into mine. I was frozen in my bed yet not scared at all. "Don't fear the darkness! Don't fear the darkness." At first, he kept repeating those words like a broken record but, every time he said it, I could feel something change inside me.
It amazed me that I felt no fear whatsoever for this person in my room. A ghost, an angel, I had no clue until he placed his hand on my heart. I saw myself as a little three-year-old girl crawling up against this large males chest. His big hands and arms wrapped around me and a soft kiss placed upon my head. He whispered some sweet words into my ear, and all I did was giggle and smile. I realized that this man who spoke to me was my grandfather. The strong man who died when I was almost four years old.
"You are never alone in the dark, never fear the dark my child." His words, I can still hear them when I close my eyes. I could not move, but I wanted to hold his hand. He stood up, flashed me his pearly white smile I only knew from pictures before he walked towards the door. The moment he reached his hand for the knob he looked over his shoulder and spoke the words one more time. "Never fear the dark, I am always there!" He disappeared into the door like a shadow.
I jumped out of my bed, almost tripping over the blanket. I ran to the door and opened it, ran down the stairs but my grandfather, the man who was taken from us too soon, was gone. My grandfather was gone. Back to his grave, back to Heaven where he lived for such a long time.
When I walked back into my room, I noticed that something had changed. Not in my bedroom but, something inside me. I did see the darkness in my room, but it no longer scared me. I did not even shiver at the thought that I just had a conversation of sorts with a dead person, a ghost. Something that would have scared me to no end if I had known beforehand.
For the first time in many years, I closed the curtains and curled up in my bed covering only half of my body. While I was still wondering about everything that had just happened, I dozed off into one of the best sleep I ever had. My dream was bright and full of laughter, and when I woke up the next morning, I could not say if it was all just a dream or if it was all real.
Slowly my life changed, and I went outside again into the darkness of the night, knowing that somewhere close to me there was someone to protect me, to guide me.
I still have nightmares, yet they no longer have a grip on me. I crushed my fear for the darkness that night with the help of an angel sent from above. My grandfather, my hero!
