Heights are a huge phobia that I have had all of
my life. When I was young, friends of ours
were adding on to their house. I want to
say they were putting a basement under their two story house by Glen Lake, but
my memory is fuzzy on the details. My
dad climbed a ladder, and I wanted to go with him. He said I could follow. I
got stuck halfway up. Being a patient father, he helped me the rest of the way
up, so I could sit on the roof. I did
fine with the sturdy construction under me, but as soon as I had to step off
the roof, the fear overtook me. Now this same house had a ladder to get to the
top floor where the kids' bedrooms were. Many times my stomach knotted when
going up when I spent the night. I would
wait until the last possible minute to come down in the morning. Yes, heights
are a deep phobia from long ago.
When I left home for college, I traveled back and
forth from Billings to Libby for Christmas and Thanksgiving, a nine hour trip
if the roads were good. After I married,
we switched it every other holiday to drive to Wolf Point, a four to five hour
trip. When we moved to Wolf Point when my husband received a teaching job, I drove
to Billing every month for drill. There
were some close calls, but the worst thing to happen was us going into the
ditch once. No big deal, until the year my sister-in-law died in a snow storm
in Minnesota. Her college van with twelve girls clipped a snowplow. The van flipped around and was hit by a bus.
Her and five other girls died at the scene. I was in Billings when I received
the news. I almost left that night to get home to the family, but my
father-in-law said no. He didn’t want his other girl on the road. I don’t remember fearing anything that trip.
However, after that terrible time, I have had a phobia of traveling on winter
roads. I make everyone miserable with me in the vehicle. I try to hide in the
back of the vehicle we are in saying Hail Mary's over and over. I know the fear
is stupid. My husband is a good driver. Hell,
I am a good driver. But, I can’t get past the knot in my stomach as I pray. And
I talk to my sister-in-law asking her to pray with me.
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