In Minnesota, winter is both a threat and a reward.
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We'd not gotten halfway when the motor started to choke and sputter. A few minutes after that, the storm was upon us.
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After I married and moved to the Boston area, I stayed away from Detroit for a long while. Once I had children, the urge to share happy venues from my childhood lured me back. My father died suddenly when my second child was just eight months old, on January 3, 1990. We had the unveiling (Jews don’t lay the headstone during the funeral, but sometime later, between six months and a year after death) in June of 1990. At that time, I took my kids on an extended trip back home.

At the beginning of the trip, we stayed with cousins in suburban Birmingham. One afternoon, I visited my Aunt Ann (grandmother of my hosts) in her lovely Southfield high-rise apartment. My mother joined us. We could see the dark clouds roll in, so I kissed my aunt goodbye and quickly gathered up my children; Jeffrey, now 13 months and David, just shy of 5 years old. Mother hastily fled to her near-by apartment.

We only had about a 20 minute drive up Greenfield Road, but the heavens opened up. The Midwest is flat and known for its violent summer thunderstorms. It began to rain buckets. Directly in front of my windshield I could see huge bolts of lightning flash from the sky to the ground, repeatedly, followed by the loud crack of thunder. I tried to remain calm in front of my young children. The sight was impressive, if a bit frightening. I drove cautiously to avoid hydroplaning my rental car. I slowed to a crawl.

By the time I made it back to my cousin’s home the storm had almost passed and my mother’s frantic phone messages were waiting for me. I reassured her. The kids had had quite the light show.

We actually had a wonderful visit with relatives on both sides of the family; were joined later by Dan and my brother’s family for the unveiling. And I began taking my children back to Michigan for several more extended visits.

The four Sarason cousins visit after the unveiling.

In the universe of trauma, it seems pretty trivial to describe a childhood horror movie.  Looking back now, it is hard to believe that I would be terrified by the old sci-fi low-budget 1950’s film, “The Blob”.  I was surprised to learn from Wikipedia that it was Steve McQueen’s acting debut, and music was by Burt Bachrach.  Not a critical success at the time, it nonetheless holds a place in the pantheon of B movies as a modest retro icon.  We can all laugh at how the creeping blob turned increasingly red as it swallowed people up.  Ha ha.

Perhaps it is the nature of trauma that it is intensely personal and often private.  I saw the film when I was seven.  I was spending the night down the street with my best friend at the time, Phyllis.  She had an older brother, George, who talked us into the trip to the movies at some local ex-pat, maybe even military, venue in Saigon.  It hadn’t been part of the plan when my parents said it was okay to do the overnight at Phyllis’ house–which I think they didn’t completely encourage as the parents were conservative military types they didn’t click with.

I knew the story wasn’t real, but the quivering pinkish blob that hid under a bed or behind a door and grew larger after devouring people was a perfect monster for a child, something that went bump in the night but even creepier.  George didn’t seem scared at all, and I didn’t want to be a cry-baby, but I was truly frightened.  When we returned to Phyllis’ house, I couldn’t sleep.  We shared a bed, and every rustle of the bedclothes made me think it might be the blob coming to get me.  I left the next day, and never said a word about my terror.  I’m not sure my parents even realized we had gone to the movies.

The traumatic part was that I couldn’t shake the fear.  Every time my mind would wander back to the film, I would get a deep and sharp pang of dread inside.  It seemed embarrassing to admit and so I didn’t tell anyone about the terror that lurked within—not my sisters, my parents, a teacher or even Phyllis.  It also didn’t go away—not for a week or a month, but for a couple of years, even after we had been back in Michigan for some time.  It was my own terrible secret that haunted me.

Eventually I was able to move on, maybe just due to being a bit older and having more distance on the experience. It was replaced by fear of nuclear annihilation, fascism, and climate catastrophe I suppose—oh to have only a scary movie to fear.  I feel lucky that it was just “The Blob” and nothing worse that became my private dark and terrible secret in my childhood years.  I can scarcely imagine the pain so many children carry from far worse trauma, but I know it can be hidden, and I know it is important that we listen to traumatized children (and older people) who are able to share their stories.

Note:  Per Wikipedia, this trailer is in the US public domain because it was published there between 1928 and 1977 inclusive, without a copyright notice.
(See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Blob_(1958)_-_Trailer.webm)