By Joan Bunting, May 23, 2019 — Have you ever been afraid of being lost? Most of my adult life, I have [had] the fear of being lost. It may have started when I was ten or eleven years old.
The church I belonged to at the time took trips to Albany Park, Coney Island, or Wildwood, New Jersey during summer vacation.
One year, we went to Wildwood, New Jersey. As you enter towards the beach, there was a lumber yard. Somehow, I got separated from my group, which included my sister, Bernice, and my brothers Eugene and Paul.
I was always very thin, and I was carrying my sister’s shoes which were too big for me to wear, so here I was all alone trying to find my way back to my church group.
So I started walking, I walked and walked, and walked. I passed a group of young, but older than myself boys. They were a different color than me. I was called names including the N-word. I just kept walking afraid to even turn my head to look at them. I utterly ignored them.
Seeing that I wasn’t getting anywhere walking in the direction I was walking in, I decided to turn around and go back in the direction from which I had come.
After walking for quite a while, I saw an older couple turn into an entrance. So I said in my mind, “I’m going to follow them.” Low and behold, they were my guiding light to where I was looking to go.
It was only God that gave me the mind to follow that couple. I believe He sent that couple there just at the right time for me to find my way back to the group I was with.
Years later, I began to have nightmares about being lost. My first dream was that I had gone to church and church was over and I was leaving. When I opened the door, it was a strange and unfamiliar location that I was in and I became very frightened because I was lost.
After that first scary dream, I had other dreams of being lost. So one I dreamt that I was lost again. So I started crying and yelled that I was tired of being lost. Guess what, after that I didn’t have any more dreams of being lost.
Last week, I accompanied Caitlin and two others to Drexel University. Not being familiar with that area, I had to be told how to get back to South Philly.
Guess what? It was either that night or the next that I had another dream of being lost.
Being lost to me is a very scary experience when you’re not familiar with where you are.