The latest column by Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan deals in an incredibly somber subject (the Sandy Hook shooting).

But it starts off with her fear as a 7-year-old girl:

“One night when the moon was bright and the wind was moving the trees, I looked from my bed into the shadowed closet . . . and suddenly the clothes and the things on the shelf above had transformed themselves into Abraham Lincoln, in top hat and shawl, staring at me and waiting to be shot. That fear came every night for years. At some point a neighbor saw my nervousness or overheard my obsession, asked what was wrong, came to my house, opened my closet and announced triumphantly “See? Lincoln isn’t there!” I knew she meant well, but how dumb can you get? Lincoln only came at night.”

Most children are afraid of grotesque monsters in their closet. For Noonan, it was Abe Lincoln wearing a shawl.