Fear Itself

My three-year-old daughter is obsessed with dogs.

She is also terrified of them.

This presents a bit of a problem, as well as confusion, considering we have a pet dog.

Lowery's first word was "dog." As an infant, she would only invest in those books in which a dog was the prominent character. She preferred her stuffed dogs over dolls. And she insisted on wearing a shirt with a dog wearing glasses on the front over and over and over.

And yet, she fears our dog.

The dog is a ten pound pug, a breed which ranks among the top of those great for--and with--children. Our pug, a fawn colored eight-year-old named Izzy, is a placid, affectionate and gentle dog who never barks. She doesn't have the best hearing or vision, so she's not prone to run wildly about the house. She is trained not to jump on furniture. And she sleeps a majority of her day.

But none of this qualifying information pacifies our child.

She still fears the skillet-faced creature.

Her fear manifests itself in a fairly subtle way. If she sees Izzy walking through a room, she quietly shifts out of her path. If Izzy is under the couch chewing on a bone, Lowery is sitting on the chair opposite the couch. She sits cross-legged at the dinner table so Izzy won't sniff her feet.

Our eight-month-old baby will sit on the floor happily tugging at the pug's fat rolls, while our three-year-old sits on the coffee table with her feet tucked under her.

Now, if the baby gate is erected in the kitchen, to keep the pug corralled while I vacuum, Lowery will sit at the gate and talk and sing to her.

But she won't touch her.

Lowery's fear is an inconvenience, it's a nuisance and, frankly, it's ridiculous.

We've tried every trick in every child psychology book. We've awarded good behaviors, like the time she actually let Izzy lick her hand. We've ignored bad behaviors, like the time she burst out crying because the pug sneezed on her.

In one traumatizing immersion therapy session, we let our pug outside and then made Lowery stand outside alone with her. But then the neighbors called about all the blood-curdling screams, so we had to stop for the day.

There's no adequate way to explain the frustration Jim and I feel over this. Every day is a mild battle between our daughter and our pug. We are constantly trying to make the two opposing forces live together in harmony.

And while we find her fear annoying and unfounded, we do recognize true fear when we see it.

True fear is subtle. Quiet. And is born out of those situations we can't, or won't, avoid.

A good friend of mine insists his biggest fear in the world is to be eaten by sharks. I find this ridiculous, because it's fairly easy to avoid them. Especially in Oklahoma.

Another friend of mine has an acute fear of drowning. Easy enough: don't swim.

My sister fears scorpions. But she's never come within stinging range of one.

A student of mine said he feared bungie jumping. You can imagine my empathy.

See, true fear can't be of the creatures or situations we can easily avoid. Why would someone ever fear being buried alive? What are you doing? Running deals for the mafia?

No, there is a special type of fear. The fear that we live with every day.

For example, I fear falling down the stairs.

This may seem small. But it's real.

I live in a house with stairs. I work in an office with stairs. I shop in stores with stairs. And I generally like to move upward in life.

While I've never experienced a bad fall, I constantly fear one is coming. I don't have great balance. I have a weak hip that I fear re-injuring. And I'm never quite sure what I'd do with my hands. I'm fairly certain I would try to protect my face instead of bracing my fall.

I fear falling and breaking my front teeth. I fear tripping down a flight while holding my infant. I fear I'll fall at work while wearing a dress and I'll roll hand over feet with my skirt high above my undies, giving all those in the stairwell a show. And concrete stairs? Forget it.

Stairs aren't all I fear, of course.

I also fear that I will burn my house down by leaving on my hair straightener. Now, one might suggest I stop using a flat iron to avoid the issue. Okay. Then I'll fear leaving my curling iron on. Stop using that? Okay, now my hot rollers have set the house ablaze.

My husband, however, has a bigger looming fear he carries with him every day. He first told me his as part of a trust exercise during our premarital counseling classes. He looked at me earnestly, took a deep breath and confessed his deepest fear: failure.

I laughed out loud. In his face. Really hard.

His hurt look should have evoked an apology from me. But I kept going.

"Failure!?!" I snorted.

"Yeah..." looking like he was questioning his decision to marry me.

"Failing at what?"

"Everything."

"I just don't get that at all," I said, realizing I might make for a horrible spouse.

"That's because fear is the only emotion you never to seem feel."

And yet, this is the man who never hesitates when climbing or descending stairs. In fact, he does that super gloaty thing all tall people do: he takes them two at time.

Jim's fear of failure, I've learned through the years, is not irrational. It's not from a place of insecurity. Or doubt. It's from a place of love. He fears failing in this life he's worked so hard to build. He fears failing as a father, failing as a spouse, a son, an employee. Essentially, he fears losing all the things he loves because of his own inability to maintain them.

So, perhaps I was wrong to laugh in his face.

But he's wrong about fear escaping me.

It's true I don't fear failure, but that's only because I'm too busy caught up in the high of trying to worry about the low of failure. But I fear all kinds of things that are not avoidable in the way sharks and shallow graves are.

I fear another traumatic car accident, but have to drive a car every day. I fear anything happening to my children. I fear losing my parents. I fear ever losing my job. I fear disappointing my friends.

But I refuse the alternative: a life without these things I love.

So, just like my pug and my child, I have to find a way for two opposing forces to live together in myself.

Despite our frustration with Lowery's fear of dogs, we are proud of how hard she's trying. She never screams or cries about the dog. She rarely throws fits or is demanding about it. She talks about Izzy endlessly. She is genuinely worried when Izzy has to get her yearly shots. She colors pictures of her, she makes up songs about her and she constantly refers to Izzy as her "hairy sister."

But she's still living in fear of her.

So we are extremely impressed by how hard she works every day to have her fear of Izzy, and her love for Izzy, coexist within herself.

Because essentially, her father and I are doing the same thing every day as parents. As spouses. As friends. As employees.

The reassuring moments to me, in which I know the fear is manageable, are in the mornings. The best part of my day is waking up Lowery. She's always curled up under her blanket with just a tuft of matted hair poking out. I'll pull back the covers and stare at her for a while, my heart bursting with love and aching with fear. I'll brush the tangled mess of curls off her face and kiss her nose gently.

She'll startle and stretch. She'll smile knowing I'm close, but won't open her eyes.

"Is sister awake?" she'll always asks first.

"Yes," I'll say. "Downstairs waiting on you."

"Is it a school day?" she'll ask, eyes still closed.

"Yes."

"And where's Izzy?" Her eyes will open for the answer.

"At the bottom of the stairs."

And she will get up and reach for my hand as we walk together to the top of the stairs and look down and see the pug.

She'll squeeze my hand. I'll squeeze it back. She'll be looking at Izzy. I'll be looking at the flight of stairs stretched before us. We'll both momentarily remember our fears. And we both know we can't escape them. So we walk toward them.

One step at a time.