Saturday, February 9, 2013

Losing Henry


When I was a child I had a debilitating fear of the dark.  I was convinced that my room was a doorway for the likes of malicious spirits that desired my untimely demise.  They stood over me with red eyes lurking and seemingly casing my soul.  I was convinced that I could feel the burn of their breath on my neck like a searing blade.  And I was afraid of being severed, losing my head.  And just as my adolescent imagination was running dangerously amuck, teetering on the brink of parallel worlds as my ears entertained disembodied musical refrains in dissonant chords Henry would close the door.  And the music would stop.  And the dragon’s breath upon the nape of my neck would cool as a daytime breeze.  I was safe.  I was cared for with the gentle balm of his fuzzy paw upon my forehead.  He assuaged the craze of my girlish woes, fallen angels and garish ghost.  Henry, my best friend.  Henry, my guardian host called from the ranks of a store shelf to shore up the gap like a seraph standing at the post of life.  Love brought him there...brought him to me.  And one day Love would take him away.

One day Henry was here and then one day he was gone.  My room became warped and ruled by darkness again.  There was no fuzzy paw to bless my head and bar the dimensions of evil imaginings.  There was no one there to sit with me in darkness...sit upright at my bedside.  There was no more floppy eared friend to keep watch for me in the bewitching hours.  There was no one there but me.  And I quickly realized how lonely darkness is when no one else around you is seemingly awake.  I spent most nights wildly evading rest, quivering in a quilted cocoon.  And I did so well into adulthood until I turned the age of thirty-three and willfully decided to peek out, pull the cover from my face and sit up with my shoulders squared at my own bedside - bringing my right hand to my forehead in homage of Henry’s anointing touch.


Thank you Mom and Dad...
Thank you for summoning Henry here to prepare the way.  Thank you for sending him away so that he would not be a stumbling block along the path. Having him allowed me to be comforted, to accept my humanness.  Losing him allowed me to see my truest self as divine.   You gave me a space of my own...a dark room, the room to grow into the knowledge that I am in fact my own light and the illusory power of darkness is revealed in the slaying of fear.  My dear parents, you did not fail me in this.  There is no failure in Love.  Thank you for such a remarkable, wonder working gift...Henry.




“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. [She] that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 
 ~First John 4:18