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The Ant Hills

The Ant Hills On a chilly evening in May, after twenty-one years of marriage, I stood at the door of a Catholic convent with two of my children. My fears and insecurities were so strong that I thought they might destroy me. Somewhere inside, you know when you've crossed the line into the unknown, that place you were so afraid of facing. You're not exactly certain how it happened, but something emerges inside that takes on a life of its own and you realize you've just experienced the end of an era.

My doubts and fears hovered like luminous demons, taunting my perceived inability to survive in a world I hardly knew. Casting out those demons led me toward an adventure that was to recreate me again and again. In facing my fears, I found the strength and the courage to abandon the familiar and allow myself to be reinvented by life's struggles.

The Ant Hills is the memoir of Peggy Rooney.

Excerpt from The Ant Hills

The Sunset ~

In those days, women didn't discuss trouble in the family and as I walked toward the taxi where my daughter Debralee was already waiting, I vaguely wondered if the neighbors were staring from their windows. I shoved the suitcases into the waiting cab and slid across the seat, pulling Joe, my six-year old, into the cab with me. I felt that deep sense of humiliation again, especially for my children. But before I could take a breath, Joe leaped from the taxi and bolted up the front steps of the house. Confused, and not wanting to relive the exodus, I waited.

Moments later, Joe appeared in the doorway of the house carrying two shopping bags brimming with stuffed animals and dragging a five-foot stuffed frog behind him. He struggled down the concrete steps, through the white picket gate and, with tears coasting down his cheeks, jostled his menagerie into the taxi. He moved across the seat and nestled close to me, swallowing muffled sobs and tightly clutching what was left of his world. One of the shopping bags had bold lettering with the holiday greeting - Merry Christmas. At that moment it seemed absurd.

"Look, lady," the taxi driver blurted out impatiently, "where to?" He stared at me through the rearview mirror, waiting for an answer. I stared back uncomfortably. I had no idea where to. He repeated his questioning, "You called the cab, lady, don't you have somewhere you wanna go?"

What was I going to do? I had no place to go, no car or job, a taxicab full of debris, and two of my children. Who would want us? After a few seconds, I heard myself say, "Take us to the convent at Mount Calvary Church." So with that, the taxi driver turned the cab around and headed for the main highway. He drove away from the familiar into a tunnel of darkness, the soft red hue of the May sunset dying on the road behind us. "God, if you really hear prayers, hear me now," I whispered. "Tell me what I'm to do next?"

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When I was growing up, the 5 and 10 cent stores sold small turtles about the size of a quarter. I remember picking out a tiny turtle and buying a small glass bowl for his home. It didn't take long to come up with an appropriate name for my turtle. For such a small creature, he was very strong, so I decided to name him Samson, but Samson was not only strong, he was also smart. I had filled his bowl with smooth flat rocks so he would have places to hide and to sleep, but Samson found another use for those rocks. Every day he would push the rocks with his head until he had piled them as high as they would go, then he would climb up to the top of the pile, trying to escape.

Once I saw what he had done, I would place the rocks back where they had been. But Samson never gave up. He would spend most of his day moving those rocks. One day he finally succeeded. When I went to feed him, Samson was nowhere to be found.

I often wondered where he had gone in search of his adventures, but I never found the answer. That tiny turtle, no bigger than a coin, believed that all things were possible and when he encountered a mountain, he simply learned to climb it. Thanks, Samson, for the faith-filled lesson. I have often thought about your tenacity and your vision.

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