Leave Fear Behind

Fear can grip us when we least expect it. In Virginia's story we can see one way of overcoming fear.

When Virginia was nine years old, her family was very poor. They lived in Pasadena, California. In his effort to build a new and better life for his family, her father and his partner left the family behind and went to Verdi, Nevada to start a new business manufacturing radio transistors. The business was slow getting started, and there was so little money they could no longer afford the rent to stay in their home in Pasadena.

Her mother was a strong spiritual woman who was determined to keep her family together, so she packed up everything they owned, children and all into a rickety old car and drove the 17-hour drive to Verdi, Nevada. Virginia was ten, her brother David was 13, and little Scott was 5.

Although they were homeless, the children didn't know it. They didn't comprehend that fact because their mother was so strong and made it all seem like a great adventure.

Their mother believed there was always a way, and that God was in every challenge. She knew there was a blessing in it somewhere. Since they had no home, they camped out in the High Sierra Nevada Mountains for six weeks. Their sole possessions were a tent, an old car, a Coleman stove, a Coleman lantern, sleeping bags, jackets and some food.

During that six-week period they built a campsite way back in the mountains. Their beds were holes dug out under a pine tree that they filled with pine needles to make mattresses. They slept warm and comfortably under the stars. There was a stream running through the campsite and an old redwood picnic table where they ate their meals. The children made a harbor in the stream; and built little boats out of chips of woods and had sail boat races. Their mother made it exciting and fun.

"Our mother found a special place up on a rock over-looking the valley, and this became our church where we had meditation and prayer. She read to us from Ernest Holmes' book The Science of Mind," Virginia remembers.

In the evenings they had campfires. Their mother taught them songs, and they roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. They ate a lot of potatoes cooked in every way imaginable.

Meanwhile Virginia's father and his partner were sleeping in town in a small store-front building while converting it into a place of business. They drove up into the mountains and visited the family every other day.

Virginia's mother took the children for long rides way back in the mountains and as they rode they sang Oh to be a gypsy and ride a gypsy van. She taught the children how to exist in the wilderness. Because of the strength and imagination of their mother, they still look back on that time as one of the best of their lives.

Eventually they were able to afford a tiny one bedroom duplex on the Truckee River. Half of the duplex was in California and the other half was in Nevada. They were on the California side. The tiny duplex backed up to the High Sierra Nevada Mountains. Virginia remembers a river and a big meadow with Basque sheepherders taking care of their sheep. The children played in the meadow, hiked in the mountains and picked apples at the apple orchard. Apples were a welcome addition to their diet of potatoes.

"The day came when it was time for us to go to school. David my older brother and I went to a one-room school-house. We walked a long way with holes in our shoes. One day my mother somehow got me a pair of red high top tennis shoes. They may have been used, I don't know, but they were new to me. I was so excited I could hardly believe that they didn't have holes in them."

One day Virginia and her brothers, David and little Scott all marched up the mountainside to test her new red tennis shoes and pretend to hunt for mountain lions, although mountain lions and other wild animals did live in these mountains. There were little vines along the side of the path. As they hiked, the children could look far down into the canyon.

Unexpectedly it began to rain and suddenly a freak flash flood hit. Boulders and water poured down into the canyon creating a torrential river below. The sky became dark and the ground slid away beneath them leaving the children clinging to the side of the mountain. Cold, wet, miserable and afraid, they hung on because there was nothing else they could do.