AfraidAfraidExploring One Emotion in Exploring One Emotion in

DepthDepthBy Kim PetersonBy Kim Peterson

Afraid: A True StoryAfraid: A True StoryBy Kim PetersonBy Kim Peterson

One hot summer day, late in the afternoon, clouds started to roll in and the sky began to turn darker. My mom called for my brother and I to come inside because there were storm warnings all around us. When we got inside, the weather man was reporting tornadoes, rains, and hail.

We spent the next several hours camped out in the lowest part of our house: Under the stairs in the basement. I was afraid sitting there with my mom and brother, listening to the reports coming from the closest T.V., just outside of our hiding place. You could tell the air was green and hazy outside. The sirens blared every now and again. The wind would blow hard and then die down, only to blow hard again.

We emerged from our spot, hungry and relieved, after the tornado warnings passed. We were happy to get out of there and happy nothing happened. Outside the rain started to pound down as we headed upstairs for a special treat: Pancakes. We always got to eat Pancakes for dinner when my dad was out of town. Little did we know that our night was only beginning. The T.V. continued warning us about the flooding rains and hail that we could expect as we hung out in the kitchen while my mom flipped the hot cakes and made eggs. The rain continued to hit the windows and lightning would flash every now and again. I wasn’t too scared. I had been in enough thunderstorms to think they really weren’t that bad. Before we sat down to eat, my mom sent me down to the basement to get more milk for dinner. When I was standing next to the refrigerator, I noticed something strange. The sink where the water flows from the washing machine was overflowing all over onto the floor.

I grabbed the milk and ran upstairs to get my mom. I was scared the water would keep coming. My mom came down and investigated. She called my Dad at his hotel where he was staying. After she checked that there was nothing blocking the drain, he didn’t seem too concerned, because there was a drain under the sink for the water to go down. Unsure of this assessment, we went upstairs and ate our pancakes. A nagging worry and a fear that the water would flood the house kept us from talking. We listened to the flooding reports. We ate faster. After dinner we all went back downstairs. The water kept coming and coming. It was being pumped from under the house by a machine called a sump pump. It is supposed to keep the house from flooding. But it was creating a very serious problem.

All of a sudden, my mom looked at my brother and I in a very serious way and sent us to find buckets. We returned in record time with two buckets each. We began a process that we would continue until about 2 in the morning. As thunder and lightning lit up the sky, my brother, mom and I filled buckets from the sink, ran from the sink in the basement, up the stairs and out the front door where we poured the water down the driveway. We were soaked. We could hardly keep up. Even though we were working at record pace, the water in the sink never went below 90% full. We were getting tired, but we knew that if we stopped, the water would flow over the sides of the sink and ruin our finished basement.

Every now and again, my mom would stop to call a friend or relative for help. The people in our neighborhood couldn’t help because their homes were flooding too. It seemed everyone we called near or far was having some problem with their own home and those that weren’t, didn’t know which way to come because many of the roads were flooded. Finally at about 11:30, my uncle said he was just leaving. He lived only about 15 minutes away. We continued our process, thinking that we would have some help to rest our aching bodies in a very short time.

Two hours later, my uncle pulled into the driveway. He had ran into closed road after closed road. He had to drive very slow, because the rain came down so fast, that he could hardly see to drive. The four of us worked together for another thirty minutes.

Finally the rain started to die down and the water level in the sink moved lower than the half-way mark and continued to lower. My brother and I were able to stop scooping and rest. The fear of our house flooding was over. We relaxed and I don’t remember much after that, because I am sure that I feel asleep soon after stopping. My body was tired, my mind was tired from feeling afraid. I will never forget that night for as long as I live. It was one of the scariest times in my life.

The End

AfraidAfraid

FrightenedFrightened

ScaredScared

FearfulFearful

TerrifiedTerrified

TroubledTroubled

Colors people associate with being Colors people associate with being afraidafraid

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Red Blue Black Yellow Orange Green Brown

Out of 25 people interviewed,Most people think of black when they are afraid.

AfraidBlack

Shake, worry, scream, Don’t moveI am quiet and hug someone.

She screams and shakes.He thinks and worries.

Fear is an emotionFear is OK.Not brave

Scared