I was at most four years old, but just like many other nights I had found myself lying awake in my bed worrying that our door wasn't locked. I couldn't sleep until I made sure that the house was secured. So, I slipped out of my bed and so as not to get caught out of my room after my parents thought I was fast asleep I tiptoed through the darkness to my door. I slowly opened my door making sure that the door across the hallway that belonged to mom and dad's room was shut.
The coast was clear so I continued my tiptoe down to the end of the hall into the living room where I could see both the front door and the back door in the kitchen. I looked out the back door's stain glass window that had lost it's color in the dark. All I could see now were shadows moving back and forth behind it. It looked like a big dark figure with hands moving it's big long fingers as if he were scratching the other side of the window, but there was no sound other than the blowing wind. I stared at it for a long time, too scared to move for fear that whatever was making the shadows behind the stain glass would see or hear me. Finally I convinced myself that the it was just the trees in the back yard making shadows on the window. Either way, standing there for very long would just leave the house unprotected. I bravely turned around and skilfully snuck over to the front door and gave the lock a good turn. Whew! One door down.
I turned back and saw the shadows moving through the dark windows in the back door. I was trapped again by the thought of what could be watching me behind the dark windows. I rationalized that it had to be the trees and that since the front door was now secured I didn't need to worry about the back door. I headed back with a job well done, or at least as much as one boy could be expected to do. I was just about to my door when the door opposite mine opened up and dad, the "grizzly bear" he often told us he was asked me what I was doing. I explained my noble task, that's when he posed the famous question that none dared to answer, "Do you want to find out where the bear sleeps?"
He must not have realized the value of my heroic task! I had just been on a dangerous journey through the dark. I wasn't afraid to answer. I bravely looked up at the towering grizzly and said, "I already know where the bear sleeps!"
"And where is that?" asked dad. I pointed in towards his room, "In there" I replied. Dad pointed into my own room and in a gruff whisper said I better get in my own room before I really find out where the bear sleeps!
I'm not sure how many times I got up in the night to keep the house protected. However, there were moments when my duty to lock the door boosted my bravery so that I even managed to lock the back door. As I lay in bed each night after a job well done, I might have thought to myself, "My family sure is lucky to have such a brave brother."
