Mystery Solved

Blog #18

     Our house on Waverly was a one and a half story house with a large bedroom on the upper level.  It had two large storage closets in the eaves and another very dark, long closet near the steps. To a six year old like I was, it was fun in the day and scary at night. It was both a terror and a delight.

      Two windows were at opposite ends of the room and brought in rays of moonlight, which sometimes cast eerie shadows on all sorts of things.  To make it worse, we had a little, nocturnal kitten that would scare us by jumping on our legs when we put our feet on the floor.  My sister and I shared the room and were always asking to go downstairs at night to see our brother, who had a room downstairs.

      My strategy had always been simple: if a burglar came into the room at night, I would pretend I was asleep, so he would not hurt me.  This seemed more reasonable that screaming, to my calculating mind.                Then, one night it happened. We had been in bed a few hours when I saw a man with a coat and a hat moving quietly on the edge of the room.  I quickly squeezed my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.  It looked a lot like my dad, but I could not be sure and I could think of no explanation of why he would be in my room “creeping” along the edges of the room late at night. It seemed so strange.  I could not sleep, because if it was my dad, what was he doing?  If it was not my dad, where did the evil man go and what did he want?  Was he hiding in a closet?

      When I got up in the morning, Dad had already left for work. The night before, he had worked in the evening, as he often did, and had not even kissed us “good night”.   Now at breakfast, I asked my mom if Dad had been in our room the night before.  She said that she did not think so.  I became really scared.  I knew I had seen someone and I wondered where he went and what he wanted.  There was no rational explanation, though I often tried to figure one out. The mystery stayed with me for more than 30 years. Then it was solved.

      You see my husband I had a little child that we loved and treasured just like my parents loved us.  We could not get enough of gazing at him awake or asleep.

One night, as we were tiptoeing into his room staying near the edge of the room as not to wake him, I stopped in my tracks.  Tears came to my eyes:  I felt so loved.  I knew that I once had a father who tiptoed on the edge of the room one night to catch a glimpse of his beloved daughters in their sleep.