My son Fearless, at five years old, almost lost his nickname on Halloween.  I live in a community that is really wonderful and its magic comes alive for trick or treaters.  I mean this literally.  There is one street that everyone goes to trick or treat, where every house is decorated and children walk up to the front door to receive candy from generous neighbors.  One house won the prize this year; they had an incredibly spooky front lawn with skeletons sticking out of the ground and decapitated heads, and then they had children.  These children must have been between seven and eleven and were dressed like zombies in bloody clothes with gruesome masks.  Not my cup of tea, but after all it is Halloween. 

The front of the lawn was corded off, so that you had to walk around it to the driveway to get your treat but the lawn was so weird everyone stopped to look, including Fearless.  You don’t really understand what is going on because in the midst of the décor, the zombie children move and topple each other, and walk slowly and it takes time to realize they are people because they are so small.

As Fearless was standing there, taking in the décor, one of the zombie children began walking in his direction.  Fearless stood there, at first fascinated, but then I saw him trying to hold hands with the person next to him thinking it was me.  He would not take his eyes out of the zombie that seemed to get closer and closer to him.  The hand he was grabbing belonged to a tween girl who had no interest in him and kept pushing him away.  He didn’t notice. He was captivated, frozen, unable to turn away but clearly scared.  All of a sudden, the zombie kid, not much bigger than Fearless jumps over the cord and heads for Fearless.  Fearless backs up behind the tween, his eyes open as wide as his face, and books it.  He begins to run down the street in sheer terror.

Now, and I admit this is cruel and God forgive me, but I laughed.  I have never seen him so scared.  I laughed and then I had to run after him.  He wasn’t crying but all he said was “Mami, I want to go home” over and over again.  I told him it was pretend, and promised that we wouldn’t go back there and had to carry him from then on in order for him to stay.  He refused to go to the door of any other house.  He was still scared and pale.  Anyone who saw him would ask me what was wrong and all I could say was that he was stone cold scared.

A Scared FearlessI carried him for a while.  Little by little, he began to be himself again, going with his friends to the houses to trick or trick and even laughing.  In no time I was running after him again because his fearless self had fully recovered and was off around the neighborhood.  For a moment I missed that quiet, scared-off-his-socks Fearless.  I think about when the Zombie kid jumped, and a laughter from inside me escapes.  It is quickly quieted by the guilt of finding my son’s terror so amusing.  And as far as nicknames go, his soul is still that of an active, curious and somewhat mischievous little boy … just how I love him and just how he will remain … Fearless.