Fears at Five

Last summer, our daycare provider's house burned down. No one was hurt, but she lost everything. She is like family to us, so we spent a good bit of time at the site of the fire in the immediate aftermath. I brought the kids, because they needed to be with her. But it was scary. It looked scary. It smelled scary. It felt scary. They were scared. Hell, I was scared.

Other parents kept their kids away. At the time, I thought being with her was the most important thing. Looking back, maybe they were too young to handle all of that. But, at the time, it felt very important to be there.

Almost a year later, the house is rebuilt. But the fears remain. We've been having lots of storms in the last week. Storms with lightening.

The other day, the child who is home with me during the day wouldn't leave the house. He was paralyzed with fear of lightening starting a fire. He worried that our house would burn down.

I had a lot to do. I needed to leave the house. (Groceries, for example.) So I started my usual parental mantra of "Oh, sweetie, that can't happen. I wouldn't let that happen" and then he looked at me with the full knowledge that not only can that happen, but it *did* happen and no matter what our intentions, bad things still occur in this world.

So, we curled up on the couch and postponed the groceries for a sunny day.