The Saturday Journal: Darkness

tathelmillerwriter
6 hours ago
5 min read

Like many of you, I grew up on well water--our well was located in the backyard--the base--a round circle of concrete stuck out of the ground about three feet--or less, and on top of the mouth of the well was the concrete cover--heavy enough two strong humans had to lift it.

Don't sit on the well!! You'll fall in!! Get away from the well!! If I had a dollar for every time I heard my Mama shout this to me and my siblings--I would have a thousand dollars--maybe more.

I hated that well!!

Not because we couldn't get near it or sit on it. I hated it because when it tore up--we didn't call the well service people--my Daddy would fix it and that meant he had to be lowered down deep into this dark hole--his body, a tight fit with not much room to move--to work.

I was really young the first time I watched my Daddy being lowered down into this pit--my Grandpa and I don't know who else was there--a few more men were standing at the top of the well--looking over. They would lower tools --holler at Daddy.

I was so scared watching--my Mama yelled at me--get in the house! I ran to my room and threw myself on my bed--and I cried. I was so worried about Daddy being in the dark.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Philadelphia with my daughter and grandson--my granddaughter had spent five weeks of her summer at a ballet school learning, making new dance friends, and falling more in love with her gift. During our travels we decided to break up the seven-hour long drive to Philly and stop at the Shenandoah Caverns in Virginia. Now I've never been to a cavern--only saw photos. I knew these caverns were underground--but my mind--what I assumed how it would be--well let's just say I was wrong about a few things--again.

It's a beautiful place--Shenandoah Valley--and along Interstate Highway 81 lies lush green fields and cornfields and old farm houses and mountain ranges for as far as the eye can see. And one of the things I appreciated so much about this stretch of highway--there were no billboards littering up the scenery--no flashing lights--no buy this--stop here--eat here--sleep here.

We arrived at the Shenandoah Caverns a short while after lunch--after our stop at Buc-ees'--my first visit to this mega-center--I bought a t-shirt with the famous beaver on the front--that's another story for another day!

As we pulled into the parking lot of the caverns I saw a bus parked to the side--now in my mind we were all going to load up on this bus and the driver would drive us to the opening of the cave--there we would walk through this entrance straight into the mouth of the caverns--I had it all figured out, I thought.

I was wrong.

The diner and gift shop of the Shenandoah Caverns reminded me a bit like Moses Cone Manor with the splendor and grandeur of an old white mansion. When we walked in, my grandson said, 'this place is so cool!' He had laid his eyes on all the stones and gems and goodies to buy in the gift shop!

There was this massive gate inside the gift shop and as I got closer I saw the dim of a light and stairs that went on forever--down into the earth--I had found the entrance to the caverns.

Boy, was I wrong.

There was close to twenty in our group--we all walked down this massive staircase together. The light was dim and once everyone got to the bottom--our guide asked, is everyone here now? Yes, we said. And she turned on the first set of lights--some gasped--some said wow--some said nothing--for me, at first--it was hard to breathe--it wasn't so much the fear of being underground--although I had to keep pushing that thought out of my mind--it was the beauty.

Shenandoah Caverns has seventeen underground rooms--the Diamond Cascade, Beyond the Veil, Grotto of the Gods, Cathedral Hall, Rainbow Lake--to name a few. And the walls and overhead are filled with flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites--some formations to me looked like fabric, ice, snow, and the famous bacon strip formations that was once featured in National Geographic. And the temperature--an average of fifty-six degrees year-round.

As we walked from room to room--our guide would always ask before we were ready to move on to another section--is everyone near--are we ready to move on? And the reason she asked this is because once we entered into a new section--the lights were turned off behind us--pitch black dark.

She talked about the formations--told us not to touch--Virginia law--'it's illegal to touch the formations. And she told us the history of the caverns--how Shenandoah Caverns is the only caverns in Virginia with an elevator--how bats and rats are sometimes seen in the caverns--luckily on this day--they hid.

And my mind raced--not about an encounter with rodents or bats--but of my step-grandfather working underground in the coal mines of West Virginia--of the electricians who worked to add lighting to these caravans--workers who built the 82-plus steps and technicians who installed the elevator.

But the story I'll remember the most about the caverns is this--how they were discovered. In 1884, the Southern Railway ran through the Shenandoah Valley and Abraham Neff, a farmer owned an apple orchard close to the railroad. During this time he had to ask permission from the railroad to dig limestone from his land. Mr. Neff's two sons were playing in the area of where the land was being quarried and found a hole where mist and damp air was rising out of the ground.

The boys gathered ropes and candles and lowered themselves down what was described as a "275 foot winding shaft" (www.shenandoahcaverns.com) discovering the massive rock formations and the beauty of the caverns.

I wish I would have asked my Daddy how he felt--was he scared--was there a glimmer--a shine when the light from his flashlight hit the water. And oh how I wish someone would have written Mr. Neff's sons' story--so many questions--how they felt--what were their thoughts when the candlelight illuminated the caverns--did they have any problems climbing back up the rope?

And as I reflect more on the darkness in the well--in the caverns--during times in our lives, I know--the darkness will come. I guess what I'm trying to say is, every now and then, perhaps we need to be reminded--being brave in the dark does not come without fear--our peace comes in knowing the presence of the Light--will change everything.

For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

Psalm 18:28

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photographs copyright and owned by Tathel Miller,