Bee Stings and Guilt Trips

A bee stung Brianna when she was six years old, and after that she had a terrible fear of them.

Her mother tried to be sympathetic at first. Bri was only six, the sting had swelled up badly, and it made sense for her to be afraid. After a year of listening to her daughter shriek every time a bee came near, though, she lost her patience. The final straw came during an attempted picnic at the zoo. Bri made them switch tables three times, screaming that there were too many bees and she would get stung.

“Listen, Chickie,” her mother said—a nickname that might have been cute, except she only used it when she was angry and pretending not to be. “You’re going to sit down and get over this right now. Just be still and don’t bother them. A bee won’t sting you unless he has to. It rips his stinger out and kills him.”

Brianna froze where she was. “Kills him?”

“Yep. So just sit still and be quiet and no one will get hurt.”

Even years later, as an adult, Brianna couldn’t decide what her mother’s motivation had been. Was she being nice and trying to help her daughter over a fear? Or did she know her daughter well enough to understand those words only implanted a worse fear, one that would ensure peace and quiet rather than shrieks and wailing? Bri had been an extremely sensitive child. A moment’s pain was one thing. A creature’s death on her conscience was quite another.

After Brianna married, she and her husband tried their hands at hobby beekeeping. Jeff liked the idea of fresh honey. Brianna felt, somehow, that sheltering a hive of bees in her yard made up for the bee death on her conscience from childhood. Perhaps she was still extremely sensitive.

When her mother came to visit, she regaled Jeff with embarrassing stories from Bri’s childhood. Of course, she mentioned the bees. “You wouldn’t believe how scared she was, crying like a bee sting would kill her. Guess we got you over that, though. Look at all the bees back there. You’re fearless.”

And Brianna still couldn’t decide—was her mother paying her a compliment, or mocking her? Did she know the truth? And if Brianna couldn’t figure out her own mother, how could she ever understand anyone?

She sometimes wondered how people dared to leave their houses at all.