Frozen in Time

The assignment at a writing group I attend is to write something on "Frozen in Time." I thought about that and about people who seem frozen in time such as the spouse who always sets a place for her husband and says, he's working but he'll be home soon. She has stopped the clock at a time just before his death and if she keeps it frozen, she won't have to see the tragedy to come. I wrote on something similar, about a woman who was stunted by an abusive childhood and so she was condemned to keep repeating mistakes.
Later I decided to look up the phrase frozen in time to see what I could find. Interestingly I found an article on a 12 1/2 year old girl who is the size of an eight month old and behaves that way. She is frozen in time. I also found an article about a 9 year old brain damaged girl whose parents had surgery done to prevent her going into puberty, growing larger etc. The surgery was very controversial.

Writing prompts lead into some very interesting areas and cause me to write things I wouldn't otherwise.