Giant

From the “Blessed Shiver” prompt from the Isolation Journals, I am encouraged to write about one of my earliest memories in vivid detail.

There are a few memories from the age of three or four….decades before starting kindergarten! I was the middle child of four siblings: my older brother, and younger twins were the ones who were noticed. My older brother, because of his adeptness at demanding attention good and bad, and the twins because they were twins and cute and adorable. My recollection of that particular was a day when were we preparing to go for a walk. We lived at the time in Fort St. John, in northern BC. It was after the snow had melted in the spring. The sidewalk was dry, but the mud was thick and sticky beside the sidewalk.

Being the perfectly well-behaved child that I was (interpret that as scared silly to do anything that might bring on my mom’s anger) I dressed quickly in my warm clothing and went outside to wait, far away from the chaos of the others. I walked out in the cool, crisp mid-morning air, looking at my boots. My feet were always kept warm with the new boots which were most likely hand-me-downs from my brother. I knew I could only walk out to the sidewalk, then stop and wait for the others. As I approached the sidewalk I looked up and saw gigantic hairy legs. My own legs, frozen with fear, would not move an inch, but eyes kept looking up higher and higher until I could see the face of that hairy creature.

I’m not sure if my fear of large dogs started at that moment, or if I was so petrified because I was already afraid of large dogs and this was the size of an elephant. The St. Bernard also did not move an inch. Did it realize the fear in me? Was he hoping to help me through it? Or was he plotting to eat me up as my imagination ran wild. Fortunately my mom and siblings came out to rescue me and on we walked, and I was once again invisible.