The Best Advice I Ever Had

A RENOWNED PHOTOGRAPHER REMEMBERS HOW HER MOTHER'S ADVICE SAILED HER THROUGH BRUSHES WITH DANGER

- BY Margaret Bourke-White

I WAS A TIMID child when Mother began her crusade to give me courage. Among my earliest recollections are her words, “Go right up and look your fears in the face—and then do something!”

To help me overcome my fear of the dark, Mother devised a little game for us to play outside at night. She ran around the house in one direction, I in the other. At the far corner, just as I began to tingle with dread of the unknown, I would run straight into her reassuring arms. Next, I sped the entire distance around the house alone—and there was Mother at the starting point.

Soon, I was joyfully facing the dark alone for as long as my parents would let me stay outdoors.

Often I woke up in the night convinced I had heard burglars in the house. Then my sister Ruth, three years older than I, and brave as a lion, would say, “Let’s go downstairs and look.” Forcing myself to face the fear, I would go hand-in-hand with her through every room. In doing this simple thing, I found that my fear vanished; had there actually been a burglar, I think I could have confronted him without panic.

As I grew older, the most frightening experience for me was staying in the house alone at night. My parents gradually built up my courage to face this ordeal. Mother would set me doing something I liked—working a favourite jigsaw puzzle, or reading a book. Then she and Father would leave me to stroll to the corner and back, or perhaps to drop in on a neighbour for a quarter of an hour. One night when they returned, I realized with surprise that I had been alone for four hours. After that, I spent entire evenings by myself in happy activity, completely oblivious to fear. I had learnt not only to banish fright, but to enjoy solitude.