Restoration…Walk It Out: the stairs

Fear of falling got me into a habit I didn’t know I was doing. Turn the light on and grip that banister before walking down the stairs…no matter whose house I was in…but especially mine. This weird behavior started when I was in high school and became part of my daily rhythm.

Do you ever ask yourself why you do something? Why you eat something or avoid something?

I don’t recall that I ever asked myself the why question because for whatever reason it just made sense to hold on with my fear of stairs. It became an ingrained habit. Over time, I just gripped the banister, no thoughts asked.

An excerpt from chapter 19 The Twig Snapped in Wounded Song: (1978)

[optional…audio of excerpt]

The disturbance of their refuge grew loud. Breathing quickened. They remained motionless.

Then there it was.

The twig snapped.

The woods fell quieter than the fawns. The breeze stopped its whispering, the birds their singing. Life became unnatural and still.

Muscles tensed in expectation. The fawns calculated their next move.

An explosion echoed in their heart throbbing ears, their refuge breached. The hunter’s shot rang out his command….

“Tammy Sue, get down here RIGHT NOW!”

Behind our sheltered door, my sister and I glanced at each other with silent words what this time?

Trembling, I opened the door and froze at the top of the stairs. I found myself staring down the barrel of his five-foot ten inch stature.

The angry hunter at the bottom continued to flush out his prey with verbal demands to come down stairs.

I did. One step.

Uncertain of my fate I stopped in my tracks. I wasn’t exactly sure how close I wanted to get to the enemy at the bottom. Nervous, shaking and fearful of the glassy cold eyes that stared up at me, I held the banister for support. My legs became rubber. Nowhere to run and afraid of disobeying my father, I managed one or two more steps before the angry hunter lunged, grabbed my ankles and pulled me down the stairs to the landing. Then grasping his trophy by the hair he continued dragging me through the living room. Kicking and screaming, arms flailing, I freed myself from his grip. [end excerpt]

Well, what a journey I’ve been on since that day! As a young adult, my search for something to make sense about my childhood spurred on my inquisitive nature. No, I didn’t ask, what made me hold the banister tight? Frankly it wasn’t an existing thought by then. What mattered was I asked something, any question, anything, which would lead to ongoing curiosity, which began to dig out unknown roots to strongholds of unhealthy thoughts and habits that needed to go away.

The rhythm of my fear got interrupted each

time I asked questions about my past.

I was in survival mode, but I didn’t know that until I began to breath again while looking back.

And we don’t discover the root unless we are willing to get our hands dirty and dig.

The summer of August 2016 Tammy Sue took a day for herself with a box of photos. She drove through her old neighborhoods where she grew up in Newtown and Sandy Hook. On this reminiscent day she stopped at the last home she lived with her family, located near the Botsford Drive-In. House number nine to be exact! For those that haven’t read my book, it is not the address, rather it means we lived in nine houses.

I drove slow on the dirt road then stopped and stared. It so didn’t look like what I remembered. It looked fresh and perked up.

August 2016 – our old home

I wondered if the new family liked it? Well, only one way to find out. The worst that could happen is they don’t answer or slam the door in my face. I drove into the old driveway and parked. Grabbed a packet of photos from house #9, walked the lit sidewalk that was never there and knocked on the front door, now covered with a little roof. A young mother with little ones answered. Her face was willing to hear why I knocked. I shared that I used to live in her house. Without blinking an eye, she lit up and welcomed me into her home for a tour. I think there were 3 or 4 children and some diapers running around. Her husband or brother sat on the couch monitoring the activity.

They had only lived there three years. Proudly she took me room to room while I pulled out what few interior photos I had. Together we were matching old walls with new ones. I told her where the kitchen door use to be. How we usually came in that way most times. She was all ears because the prior owners had knocked down walls to expand the downstairs and upstairs. I pointed to where my parent’s room was and over there, my brother’s. Eagerly she asked if I wanted to see my old bedroom? I said, “Absolutely.”

Before the remodel it was a traditional cape. At the top of the stairs were two bedrooms, mine on the right, and my sisters on the left. Straight ahead was framed out for the bathroom that never was. Nothing was the same. This place was huge, carpeted, had a bathroom and painted walls. I couldn’t recognize where I once hung my Peter Frampton posters on the exposed 2 x 4 frame of my unfinished bedroom. Whoa! What a transformation.

1978-1982 house #9 (my Pontiac Tempest)

1978-1982 house #9 (my brother Michael & kitchen door)

When I drove up to my old home, I didn’t know what I would meet on the other side of the knock and she didn’t know who she was letting into her home. Here were two strangers who took a risk and trusted the heart of the moment. They didn’t have to let me in, but how thankful I am for that treasured opportunity. We hugged goodbye as I thanked her for the gift of letting me walk through a piece of my past.

It wasn’t until later, I don’t know, maybe when I was driving home or the next day, but then it hit me.

It’s in the merciful reflection of what I came through that I see His graceful shedding of my old skin.

Not only did I get a tour of our last house, I never winced, paused, or gripped the banister when I walked down the very stairs that I had been dragged down by my ankles, a long long time ago.

What does God’s restoration look like? Something like that.

It takes intention. It takes effort. It takes perseverance to tackle ghosts. And most times you don’t even know you did until you walk right through it!