Lets Just See What The Story Brings

One summer day, when I was 5 or 6 my grandparents had taken my sister and I to the back garden to collect vegetables. On our way back I was walking ahead with my grandfather and he spotted something in the grass. A wee little garter snake. He picked it up and as he was showing this little creature to me my grandmother started to shriek. She froze where she was, clutching at my sister, holding her back, and she began yelling at my grandfather, scolding him for what seemed like the very existence of snakes. Her reaction scared me. I still remember to this day how much it affected me, how much it still affects me. And to make matters worse, when my grandfather released the snake I lost sight of it, which scared me even more. This terrifying thing was out there, on the loose and I ran for that little path that divided the back garden from the backyard. I rarely ventured back there again, and never alone.

My grandmother passed way a few weeks ago. She was 96. We interned her ashes on Saturday, and as it happens, on Sunday I crossed paths with a snake, much fatter and much longer than the wee garter I was first introduced to. It flinched and I screamed. It practically jumping into the air before diving off the path and disappearing while I stood paralyzed. My anxiety primed by the residual fear that has now evolved into an irrational phobia. I was hyper vigilant, anticipating snake sightings everywhere. I did not-could not relax for the rest of the day. I almost always walk with my head down, watching.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandma, and the shade of anxiety I inherited from her. This thing that connects us. The same panic that coursed through her veins now rushes through mine. Apprehension handed down to live on in me.