Terror in The Cemetery

The two young girls were running with every ounce of speed that their 12 and 14 year old bodies could muster. They were breathing so heavily that screams were impossible as they ran across the gravestones which were flush with the carefully manicured lawn in the cemetery. Reaching the end of the grass, they bolted across a dirt field like two fillies chased by a ghostly Beucephalus with nostrils engulfed in flames.

Their safe haven was in sight. The small wooden shed located at the bottom corner of the field, west of the cemetery, would shelter them from him. They flew into the dusty one roomed building and slammed the door shut, bolting it quickly. Heaving with burning lungs, they bent over sucking in huge gulps of air and waited.

A few hundred feet behind the panicked girls was a furious boy, approximately 11 years in age. The little red-haired, freckle-faced demon ran determinedly after them, brandishing a huge carving knife while screaming a war cry. He meant to do some harm of one kind or another.

He cleared the neatly organized gravestones and crossed the dried grass field in a b-line for the shed. He was determined to get his revenge. As he approached the little shack that housed the girls, he screamed and cried in anger. Then repeatedly stabbing the door, with an over-the-head ax-murderer attack, the boy vented his frustration on the wooden barrier between he and the girls.

Meanwhile, they were cowering inside the creepy shed listening to the bludgeoning coming from outside. Why was this brutal attack from a mere child occurring? I don't really remember what specifically provoked it. Yes, that was me inside the shed. That is, me and Julie, my husband Mike's older sister. The shed was spooky enough by it's self and the kid yelling for blood outside was no more comforting. When would the attack end and when could we get out of there?

Sadly, I don't recall just how everything unraveled. It was a eternity ago in dragonfly time. I lived to see another day. Obviously.

You see, this is my first memory of my husband-to-be. Lovely is it not?

Somehow, we aggravated that little boy, my future husband, to the point he wanted to kill us. Literally kill us. Recollection of the events makes me think Julie was the primary instigator. I was extremely shy and not one to start a fight, so I could not possibly have been responsible for igniting the display of rage I have just described. I think I was simply a willing accomplice to the alleged torment.

However, should I have taken this as some warning sign? They say that love is blind. Or just plain stupid in some cases... So was I influenced to marry him 21 years later out of fear for my life or just plain love? Again, I'm not dead yet.

These days Mike's temper is under control and he does not chase me around our property with over-sized cutlery. So, why gentle reader have I provided this quaint and heartfelt tale of love and affection?

This chronicle is to commemorate the celebration of my 5th wedding anniversary with my dear and loving spouse. Today we have been married 5 years. Cumulatively, we have been a couple for slightly over 12 years. Debbie at Suburb Sanity inspired me with her story on how she met her spouse; and I thought that my first memory of Mike would be a touching way to acknowledge our union.

After a long engagement period of 7 years, Mike and I got married in a quiet elopement in Monterrey, California. That is after he trapped me. Yep, you guessed it, I became a "little" pregnant. We (I) decided that we had to be married as to not give his parents an early heart attack or some other unspecified conniption fit. His family would not handle the thought of a child out of wedlock well. They're kind of old fashioned that way. Because we were already the "bad seeds" and shacked up, we had to become legal and make our union official.

My relationship with Mike and his family spans back many years to my early adolescence when I was a gawky 12 yr old in 8th grade who wanted to have a horse. I bought, Candy Bar, a buckskin quarter horse from Mike's mom back when satin dolphin shorts, polo shirts, and top sider shoes were really popular. Hence, Mike and I knew of each other since we were kids. And I use the term"knew" rather loosely here since I was friends with my mother-in-law before I even had a glimmer of her son as my future husband. I used to have sleep overs with Mike's older sister, Julie, and keep my horse at their house. Julie and I rode our horses through the hills like wild she-women well before I ever thought of him as anything more than just her bratty little brother, Maniac Mike, who chased us with a butcher's knife. Any thoughts beyond that of would not occur for at least a decade later.

And about the cemetery...Mike's dad was the on-grounds manager of a large Catholic cemetery that was surrounded by 120 acres of open space. They lived in a 100-year old Victorian near the cemetery grounds. But that is the stuff for another story here on Our Simple Life.

Happy Anniversary Micheal!