The Monsters in the Basement

When I was a little kid I was scared to go down into the basement of our house. Ours was a modest ranch-style home with an unfinished downstairs typical of the times. The concrete floor was painted a battleship grey. The upstairs floor joists were visible, uncovered by the now-common drop ceiling. Bare light bulbs with pull chains hung from the joists. The walls were concrete block, painted a light grey. There were plenty of places for monsters to hide. Behind the old furnace. Underneath the stairwell. In the pantry.

It was bad enough to have to go down there even when my parents were home. Sometimes my mother would ask me to fetch something from the pantry. So I’d run down the steps, scamper across the floor, snatch whatever she wanted off the shelf and run as fast as I could back upstairs. Leaping the steps two or three at a time, I was sure I could feel the hot breath of a hobgoblin on the back of my legs. As difficult as it was to venture downstairs when someone was home, it was unthinkable to go down there when I was at the house alone. I avoided it like the plague.

My father passed away 16 years ago. When my mother followed him three years back I had to clean out the house and put it up for sale. I went back one last time before the sale was completed and spent over an hour by myself in the house that my parents had built and lived in for over 50 years … and where I had spent 21 years of my life. I spent time in every room … thinking about the things that had transpired between the walls - Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, and family dinners. I remembered the nights I’d spent doing homework at the little desk in my small bedroom. Building fires in the living room fireplace with my dad on cold winter nights. Alternating washing and drying the dishes with my sister after dinners. Smelling the sweet scent of fall apples stored in paper bags wafting in from the breezeway.

And I went into the dimly lit downstairs to remember the games of pool I played with my father and grandfather. I thought about how we’d take our rifles and shotguns down there to clean them after hunting trips. I recalled how my father would spend time at his work table doing wood carvings of animals. And, finally, with a melancholy chuckle, I said good-bye to the monsters and walked back upstairs.

Today I can smile about dashing downstairs on errands for my mom … and getting out of there as fast as I could, knowing that spectral hands were just inches from grabbing me. But back then, those monsters seemed pretty real.

That’s the way it is with a lot of the things we fear in this life. We’re certain they’re out there stalking us … breathing down our backs … just waiting for the right moment to pounce. And, truth be told, we do live on a fallen planet. And there are some things we ought to take seriously. From a practical perspective, however, most of the things we worry about don’t ever happen. Like my monsters in the basement, they’re products of our imagination.

It’s such a waste to worry about things that are unlikely to happen. So many times we look back at things about which we were terrified and laugh quietly in amusement that we ever thought them worthy of our attention. So, do yourself a favor - choose your fears wisely – and put them in perspective.