The first two Halloweens of our son’s life were complete busts. The first one because he was hospitalized because of feeding tube complications. The second because he freaked out whenever he saw a kid wearing a mask. And he saw lots of them.

Because I was an elementary teacher in a very small town.
Where all my students rang our doorbell and said, “Trick or treat!”
Right after I invited them into our kitchen where Allen sat in his highchair.
Right before he began crying and screaming in terror.

It was not a good night for any of us. Allen was distraught. My students were mortified because they had scared a baby. I felt guilty about my son’s emotional pain and about hurting my students’ feelings. My soft-hearted husband felt bad because he could do nothing to calm down our baby.

Before another Halloween rolled around, we wised up and gave Allen a mask to play with.
He wore it—reluctantly—and took it off.
We wore it and took it off.
He talked about it.
We talked about it.

By October 31, everything was copacetic. Our toddler donned his costume without a mask and went trick-or-treating with gusto that year. And every year thereafter.

I didn’t give the subject of Halloween masks another thought. Until decades later, when I was talking to Allen, then in his early twenties, on the phone. He described what happened when he was four, before the first surgery he could remember.*

“Did you know I freaked out when they wheeled me into the operating room?” he asked.

“No,” I replied slowly. “Though I’m not really surprised considering how you went ballistic after the surgery when the anesthetic wore off.”

To read the rest of Face to Face, go to the Not Alone blog. Thanks!

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop-up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

Photo Credit: www.freedigitalphotos.net