The children were gathered together into rows and shushed as they awaited their cue. Our eyes wide, our palms sweaty, we stood facing the closed double doors obeying our captors. I was only 5, but I truly feared what awaited us beyond those doors. And I feared the women who were about to force us through them. I could only imagine the sinckers of onlookers who awaited us. I could see their faces in my mind: the fat lady with the orange striped dress, the lady with the blue eyebrows. I knew they waited for us. I could hear the laughter and cackling and finger pointing that would precede our torture. As the doors opened and the children filed through in rehersed lines, I invisibly found my way to the back and hid among the last children in line. My heart pounded in my throat, but I was too afraid to cry. I looked around for any possible corner to hide, and my mind flew through faulty ideas of escape. A boy tried to beg his way out of line, but the woman pulled him by his arm as he screamed. I watched in disbelief as he slipped through the door, his fingers grabbing at the closing panels of wood in a panic. I was in shock at what I had witnessed. And I couldn't save him or any of them.

My mother, Thank God, was my savior. She didn't force me to participate in the children's song performance in the chapel. Instead I was able to sit with her in our pew, hidden among adults. That's right. I HID, or tried to. I was fearful for my life still. And I really feared for the children who were up there exposing their beings to this congregation of onlookers, these people and their judging eyes and minds and I couldn't quite understand why they accepted this escruciating sentence. Death would at least be an end to this, but none of us should be so lucky. No, this would continue for an hour, song after torturous song. I trully thought that the chorester or other adults would take me from my mother and force me up those stairs. Surely the universe would not continue beyond those steps, or actually, worse. It would continue and I would have to stand there and endure what I knew I couldn't. It didn't happen. I remained hidden, sunken down in the pew, praying for invisible powers. And nothing was ever said. I escaped what would surely have scarred me for life. Instead, I am only left with the tremendous guilt of leaving my peers and saving myslef.

My first memory, I've learned happened when I was 18 months old.

sterile sev

My mother's face. At the time I didn't have the words to discribe it, nor did I know or understand the emotions to go with it. I did know it was terrifying. White walls. White, sterile floors. My screams echoed and my mom just watched, her face like stone. Only now do I understand what she must have been feeling and how she tried to keep a straight face and not fall apart in front of me. Dispite my cries, I was taken and tied down to a gurny. I remember seeing a swinging door as it came closer. The speed of life slowed, as we entered, but my terrified heart still sped. I still have nightmares where the world runs in slow motion and I still can't stop it. Even the voices are slurred and deep. I don't know what they are saying and I'm fighting everything. Stop it! Stop! The colors and lights are spinning. Stop the spinning! I'm dizzy. Slurred, slow voices...