The Girl Left Behind – Before I Knew to Be Afraid

In one of my earliest memories, my mother scoops me into her arms and sets me on the bare back of her favorite horse. I am about three years old, and from up there, it feels as though I am a mile off the ground.

I grab a fistful of the horse’s mane to steady myself.

I love the feeling immediately—the height, the warmth of the animal beneath me, the sense that I am somewhere I belong.

I don’t get to stay there long. My father is worried I’ll fall and scolds my mother for putting me in danger.

My first horseback ride is brief, but something about it stays with me. From then on, I am fascinated by animals, especially cats, dogs, and horses. Animals were already part of our family life.

My father was a large- and small-animal veterinarian, although I have never quite understood where his calling came from.

He had grown up an only child in San Mateo without animals around him.

My father was born on October 1, 1923, and raised in San Mateo, California.

His father, my grandfather Mario, was an ambitious businessman who simultaneously owned and operated a butcher shop, a coffee-importing business, and a grocery store.

Hard work—and perhaps ambition—were deeply woven into that side of my family.

After high school, my father left California to attend veterinary school in Colorado.

My mother, Frances, was born on January 25, 1925, and grew up in Oakland. Although San Mateo and Oakland were only about thirty miles apart, the places where my parents grew up were quite different in those days. Oakland was a busy industrial city and major port, while San Mateo was smaller and more residential. Their families had different backgrounds, but both believed deeply in hard work. My mother had another side to her, though. She was a free spirit. She loved animals and flowers, especially roses and sunflowers, and she brought that love of living things into our home.

We lived in a four-bedroom house in San Bernardino with a garage, barn, corral, and large front and back yards. The area was still fairly rural then, and it wasn’t unusual for families to have horses, livestock, and plenty of land. Our house sometimes seemed like a small zoo.

Along with chickens, goats, horses, pigs, and even a bull, we had some decidedly less conventional pets—a huge tortoise large enough for children to ride, a descented skunk, an iguana, and several snakes.

Our neighbors had an orchard filled with black olive trees.

Bird-of-paradise flowers seemed to grow everywhere, including outside my parents’ bedroom window.

My mother planted roses along one side of our front yard and tall sunflowers beside the swing set. My father took charge of the other side, hauling in enormous boulders and planting cactus among them. He loved searching for rocks and, for reasons I never quite understood, had an equal affection for cacti.

And me?

I had the entire neighborhood. During the day, I explored freely, sometimes wandering as far as the canal down the road. I could disappear into my little world for hours without fear.

The neighborhood, the animals, the school, and the people around me all felt familiar and safe.

A month after I turned five, I started kindergarten at Jefferson Hunt School, only two houses from our home.

Kindergarten lasted just a few hours each day and seemed mostly designed to introduce us to the idea of school. I still have some of my teachers’ notes from those years.

“Very well adjusted to group activities. Loves puzzles, which she does unusually well for her age. Though the youngest child in school, has adjusted nicely to the group, and is well-liked by the children.”

What I remember most vividly is discovering that I could read. It felt like someone had handed me a key to another world.

I loved going to the library with Mom and being amazed that I could choose books, carry them home, disappear into their pages—and somehow all of this was free.

George was three years younger than I was and still too little for school. I adored my little brother and felt protective of him from the beginning.

My mother worked for an insurance company, and while she worked, Mrs. Berg looked after us. After my father left our home, Mom worked less and was with us more. At the time, I believed we were happy. I believed everything was going to be all right. Our days were filled with school, neighborhood friends, animals, chores, and adventures. George and I helped feed the animals, clean stalls, and put them into their pens at night.

Inside the house, I set and cleared the dinner table and helped Mom with the dishes. She was an excellent housekeeper; everything had its place, and somehow she seemed to know where that place was.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a tomboy. One day I might be wearing jeans and a cowgirl hat, and the next I could be dressed in a fancy dress, patent-leather shoes, and a bonnet.

Both girls belonged to me.

And then came Misty.

When my father wanted something, he usually found a way to make it happen. On my seventh birthday, as I was getting ready for my party, Dad appeared outside my bedroom window.

“I’ve got something to show you,” he said.

The grin on his face told me it was something good. I followed him outside toward the barn. And then I saw her. A beautiful Welsh pony.

“Her name is Misty,” Dad told me. “She’s all yours.”

I was stunned. I had wanted a horse for as long as I could remember. In fact, I had asked for one at my third birthday party and had been told I was much too young. Now, four years later, there she was. Mine. Dad showed me how to approach her slowly, my hand extended so she could smell me.

When I looked into her enormous brown eyes, I saw something there—an intelligence, a gentleness, perhaps even recognition.

I couldn’t believe I had my own horse.

From that day forward, Misty and I were nearly inseparable. Mom taught me how to saddle her, although more often than not, I preferred riding bareback.

George was jealous at first, and I reassured him that Misty could never take his place in my heart. And she couldn’t. He was my little brother, and I adored him.

But Misty gave me something a four-year-old little brother couldn’t.

She expanded my world. Each afternoon, when the final school bell rang, I hurried the two houses home, slipped a halter around Misty’s head, and off we went. She wasn’t particularly fast. She wasn’t particularly slow. She was perfect because she was mine. I loved the smell of her. I loved brushing her mane and feeling the warmth of her body beside mine.

Sometimes she would curl her head around me as I groomed her, almost as though she were pulling me into an embrace. I was convinced she understood me. On Misty’s back, I felt taller.

Stronger. Free. She became my companion, my ally, and in some way I couldn’t have explained at the time, my protector. With her, I felt completely safe.

I didn’t know yet that there would come a time when feeling safe would become something I searched for rather than something I simply knew. I didn’t know yet that there were reasons to be afraid.