A Memory to Share!

I remember distinctly when I was very young; a distinct memory like a song over-sung.
I used to see scary images on the window mesh when I used to wake up at midnight. I used to see faces, mashed up ones, screaming ones, horrified ones, pale ones... scary ones.
I used to hear things, fear the night and fear darkness. A shiver would go down my spine every time I would think about the dark road that leads to the back-field. It was scary to go to the backyard, filled with trees, in the night. I used to feel as if something kept watching me in the dark. I feared any sound that came out of the dark. Ghosts loomed over my head, constantly.
Night time was a scary time, darkness was a scary place.  Crying, I would hold out my hand in this darkness and one hand would always reach out to hold mine. In that cold place, one warm hand always held mine to tell me "I'm here." He kept holding until I got over that fear or drifted off to sleep. My brother was there to hold my hand in the most scariest of times. When I silently said, "Be there when I'm scared," he would gesture with a smile, "I'll be there when you're scared."
He used to say, "There's nothing to be scared about! If something makes you feel weird or scared, go and find out what it is;  poke it with a stick and you'll see that its not scary at all. Or, even if it is, it is fascinating and new. Don't be scared. Its really nothing." Those words did give courage for that time. But he made sure that these words reach me every time I felt scared.
"There was this time when I was walking the dark road to the back-field. I heard some noises. But I did not run away, or turn away. You know what I did? I went to where these noises were coming from and you know the watchmen? Ya, they were sitting there laughing and talking. There was this other time I heard an unusual sound. I tried looking around and saw that it was the trees rustling against each other. It really is nothing, nothing to be scared about," he used to say, instilling as much courage as possible.
There was this one time when I was sleeping alone. My brother and my mother were in another room talking. I heard a sound that I never quite heard before. It was shrill, shreaking and regular. It was at a time when I had seen an alien movie named 'Signs' and it was scary, terrifying. Except, this time, I wanted to see what it was. Yet, I was too scared to do it alone. I called my brother, who came to me and asked, "What's the matter?" I told him about the sound and he said, "Let's look at what it is!"
We switched the light on and looked around. After five minutes, he came from under the bed with something quite pretty in his hand. He said, "So here's your answer to the sound. Its called a cricket! It makes those sounds.... No reason for you to fear. Go back to sleep." That night, I slept knowing that I was in the company of something pretty that sang a lullaby to me to help me sleep, and not something that was going to kill me.
I won't say that I was never scared after that, I won't say I don't feel scared now, because fear is something that will never leave you. It is something that mankind must learn to live with.
But today, I am not that scared kid. I am a scared kid, but not that scared kid. Back then, I would say, "Be there when I'm scared," today, I say. "I'll be there when you're scared."
There is some point in time when everyone goes from "Be there when I'm scared" to "I'll be there when you're scared."
That memory will always remain as a bright star in the heart and when I relive it, tiny droplets stand at the brim of the eye, ready to jump into the smile that just took over.