When the Shock Brings Truth

I was electrocuted twice as a child. The first time was with my 80-year-old great-grandmother. That was bad. But the one that stands out most in my mind was the other one. 

I must have been about ten. Braids, bell bottoms, and a smattering of freckles I tried to scrub off on a daily basis. I had followed my older sister and her next-door-neighbor friend into the woods. I’m not sure if they knew I followed them or if they intentionally tried to ditch me. I imagine it was the latter, as I was a tag-a-long and wanted to be included at any cost. Even if I was the “villain” in all the make-believe games or given the Barbie doll without the head, I was fairly determined to be a part of anything my older sister did, and so I persevered. 

I trampled the damp path through the woods alone, as the others had gotten far ahead. The path weaved its way between patches of skunk cabbage and over plank-boards bridging mud holes. For a ten year old, it seemed a good long way from home, though it was probably yards from the girl’s house. 

My sister’s friend had a small barn tucked at the edge of the path. She kept her horse there, within the boundary of an electric fence. By the time I reached the outer perimeter, my sister and her friend were swinging around the dilapidated hay loft, already full bore in some game I was missing.

I should have assumed the fence was hot when I went to climb through it. I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me, especially since we had horses too, and it wasn’t my first rodeo with electric fences. I guess I wanted to join the fun, and my focus was on the loft. If you’ve ever been caught on an electric fence before, one of the first things you learn is that you can’t get off. When I gripped the wire to shimmy through it, the voltage spliced through my body, contracting every muscle I owned. My fists clenched the wire in the current and couldn’t be opened. Not for anything. The rule of thumb is there’s no getting off until someone unplugs the power. My great-grandmother had tried the first time to wrench me free, and that just got both of us stuck.

I don’t know if I screamed or if my sister and her friend had seen me, but the power shut off some time after, maybe only seconds later. The girls rushed down and circled around me to make sure I was okay. The buzz of current remained under my skin, leaving me weak and shaky all over. Wrung out and zapped. I could barely stand, but I assured them I was okay. I was fine. 

They ushered me up the twisting path, back over the bridges and through the skunk cabbage toward home. Those details are a little blurry to me, either from the shock’s aftermath or time’s. But there are some details I’ll never forget.

As we climbed the girl’s driveway and my own came into view, my father stood at the edge of our drive waiting for me. To this day, I don’t know how he knew he needed to be there or why he was looking for me. How he knew I needed him so badly at that moment. 

But there he was. 

When I saw him, I ran to him. He held me, and everything let loose inside me. The pain of the shock. The hurt of being left out. The shame of going through all of it just because I wanted to belong so badly. It came in a deluge of tears that never found words. Grimy and unkempt sobs that bled down my cheeks and held nothing back. 

My sister still teases me about it. She’ll say that everything was fine until I saw Daddy. That I had gotten over it ten minutes before, shrugged it off, righted myself, and marched through the woods all better from my escapade. Just up until the point I saw him. Then I crumbled. Soaked it for all the attention it was worth, she’d say. 

And she was right, in part. But here’s the deeper truth. Here’s the thing I understand now from this side of life:  

That in that moment, wrapped in my father’s strong arms, beyond feeling safe and secure, it was okay not to be fine.

It was okay that the burden was too heavy to carry. That I could no longer hold the weight of it, not just the physical pain, but the heaviness of shame and unworthiness. Insignificance. That I had trekked through mud and stinky weeds to belong to something I was never a part of. To try so hard to fit in. It was okay to no longer have the strength to wear a plastic smile and pretend everything was all right, that I was untouched and unaffected by the shock waves that ripped through my world.

Because maybe I wasn’t.

And maybe they look different today, those waves, but they’re still there. I still pretend to have it all together. To be smart and organized and on top of everything. To hide the cobwebs in the corners and the laundry in the basement. The shortcomings and the fears. And though I’ve made peace with my freckles, the adult version of my mask is the same. I just want to be loved. To be a part of the good stuff. To be okay.

When I look in my Father’s eyes and gather up close in His arms, when I come to Him with muddy tears and shaky knees, His words wash over me: I know where you’ve been, child. I understand the hurt and heartache you feel. The heaviness you cannot bear. The pain you try to conceal. I see it all because you are Mine. I know your deepest need. I see YOU. And I love you just as you are. 

And it’s there, in that place, we let it all out. We give it to him. The walls. The facade. The pretending. Our heart settles. Our breathing regulates. And we don’t have to work so hard at being okay. 

Because who we are is just who we’re supposed to be.

And when we come face-to-face with that kind of love, we no longer have to lie.