The Peace of God in the Stars

The Peace of God in the Stars

Pamela Alcasey

pamdoughty@ymail.com

979-209-9055

Most people find the day warming and welcoming. I find the night that way. The night outside is covered with stars and dreams. It is so quiet and still. You can find peace in the night. Growing up in a stormy home meant that there were never ending unexpected dramas taking place that you could easily end up in the middle. Heads would twist and you would be the center of the next conflict. The center of attention for unknown wrongs you had done. “Where have you been?” one head screamed. “I was in my room cleaning” (you had to be doing something productive, playing was not a good answer). “Well, let me just go and see how it’s going up there in your clean room!” yelled my mother. Now I was in trouble for lying, for a messy room, for coming into the kitchen and bothering my parents during one of their drinking adventures. Not a good place to be right now.

I went up into my room with my mother pulling me along. The screaming was about to commence. “You call this cleaning?” “Your room is a mess!” “What were really doing up here?” I never knew how to answer any of the questions. “No, it is not clean.” “I was playing with my dolls.” “Well!” screamed my mother, “You could have just said that downstairs!” Now you can clean up your room for lying to me.” You see, it is my fault again no matter what I say it leads to punishment of some kind. Cleaning was misery to me because it was never good enough, so why bother to try. I spent hours in my room trying to make it looked like I cleaned it up as long as no one looked in the closet. But, of course, someone always would look there, and we would start the same conversation all over again and more hours cleaning. I needed to go outside.

Outside was always a happy place especially at night. One of my jobs was to take the dog outside and make sure he did his jobs. My sisters hated to go out at night, but I loved it. Being inside was a frightening experience. Not only was I always in trouble inside, there was a ghost in my room every night. It was a man who would stand at the end of my bed in a raincoat and hat watching me. Before bed when I was walking up the stairs the stairway lights would go off. It happened almost every night. I thought it was my sisters trying to scare me, but it would continue at the top of the stairs where the bathroom was located. I would go into the bathroom and the lights would go off. If I didn’t act angry and tell them to go back on, they would stay off. If I got angry and said, “Turn them on now!” in an angry voice the lights would come right back on instantly. My mother told me there was a ghost in the shower downstairs that ran his fingers up and down her back. The house was a very scary place to live. Ghosts in the night and drama during the day.

No one but me and my mother experienced the ghosts in the house. My sisters were afraid because of the stories my mother and I told of the ghosts, but they never saw or experienced them as I did. The lights didn’t go off on them when they walked up the stairs or into the bathroom. They were safe, so maybe that is why they didn’t feel the need for safety outside. Saturdays were the worst for being inside during the day.

On Saturdays my parents would let us go outside to play or to the pool, but when the weather was bad, they would assign us impossible chores that would take the entire weekend and never be completed. Clean the basement or clean the garage. The basement was very large, as large as the upstairs. The washer and dryer were there against the back wall, the toys were under the stairs and the rest of the basement was storage, a small messy workshop and parts of projects my Dad would start. All of us were terrified of the basement. You never knew what scary sounds you would hear; the light was just a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling and there was a large door to the outside. Sounds like creaking, mumbling, scraping and scratching noises and the darkness seemed to move. No one wanted to go into the basement if they could help it, even in the day, but especially at night. All the toys were in the basement and all of Dad’s storage things. The toys could easily be put in the boxes under the stairs, but the other stuff was a mess and we had no idea where anything went. If we went upstairs to ask heads would twist again… So, we just struggled to figure things out and usually ended up playing instead of working, another head twisting event. The garage was all my Dad’s things, so it was a never-ending head twisting screaming punishing event. I never wanted to be in the house for any reason, never.

So, after cleaning the kitchen and washing the dishes (only the kids did these things) the dog had to be fed and taken out. The dog was a boxer who had pulled my younger sister around the yard and finally ran to the neighbor’s house with her hanging on to the leash and bouncing on her belly as she flew behind the dog. So, I was the main person to take the dog out because it was a harrowing experience for my sister and my mother running behind screaming, “let go of the leash, to my sister!” I loved taking the dog out.

When I took the dog out, I could stay outside for as long as I wanted. No one asked where I was or what I was doing. I was free. Enjoying the peace of no sound was the first thing I did and looking at all the shadows around me that seemed to hold me and suppress my fears. God waited for me outside he waited in the stars and moon above. I could look up at the stars and see God there protecting me from the storms of my house and the evil inside. Every night I would look up to the stars and find peace.