Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Childhood (09/03/09)
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TITLE: My Child | Previous Challenge Entry
By Amanda Septer
09/09/09 -
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Marcia Rae’s desperate whisper pleaded to the empty kitchen. Holding the letter in her hands, she surrendered the rest of the mail she was holding to the counter. Her worst fear was coming to life. With a shaking hand she picked up the phone and started to dial. Her frantic thoughts forced her to redial two more times before she got it right. Collapsing onto the wooden kitchen chair she waited for her lifeline to pick up.
“Mom it’s happening” she said as soon as her mother’s greeting filled her ears.
“What’s happening? Marcia what’s wrong?”
“She wants to meet him. I have the letter right here.” she said frantically.
“Who wants to meet who? Marcia calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
“Brenda Sellers. Brenda Sellers wants to meet Brandon.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Saying the name out loud made Marcia sick to her stomach. Fourteen years she had feared this and now here it was. Feeling more like a child than her forty years, her tears fell.
Fourteen years ago, three year old Brandon had been placed with them through the foster care system. His drug induced parents had tortured him with cigarette burns and days on end in a closet. When they found themselves so enslaved to their addiction they tried to sell Brandon for drug money. After four other foster homes he had finally made it to Marcia and Jed’s home. The love had come easy, but his childhood did not. It had taken years to build trust and break down walls of abuse, but eventually Brandon started to grow and enjoy life. Though there were a lot of bumps along the way, there was also a lot of fishing, movie nights and basketball, things that helped him claim a childhood that had started so tragically.
“Marcia, honey, you need to calm down.” Her mother, Ruth, soothed after letting herself in. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How is it going to be okay?” she demanded. “This is my child.”
“Your right, he is your child. But he is also hers.”
“He is not her son.” Her words saturated with the hurt and fear she felt. “I am the one who rocked him through the nightmares she filled, and bandaged the wounds she caused. Now she thinks she can just walk back into his life.”
Ruth watched her daughter from across the table. She understood the emotions that were playing so clearly on her face. She was always amazed by God’s timing. She had read the story of Joseph earlier that week, a story that touched her since her own grandson had been sold by his family, but the reuniting with his family stuck out most in her mind at this moment.
“Marcia Rae,” she said with a gentle firmness, “You listen to me. This is not about you. This is not about Brenda Sellers. This is about Brandon. You know he has questions. Ones that you cannot answer.”
Marcia knew she was right. She wanted to protect her baby, but her baby was seventeen now. He had asked Jed and her about his birth parents on occasion, but never pushed to far for fear of hurting them. In her anger towards them she had allowed her son to keep his questions to himself, but she now saw the selfishness in doing so. Helpless she turned pained eyes to her mother.
“What do I do? I hate her.”
“Well for starters you are going to confess that hate for the sin that it is and ask that God replace it with love.”
“Love?” she asked clearly skeptical.
“Yes, love. You are going to stop seeing her as the woman who hurt your child, and you are going to start seeing her as she is, the woman who gave you the very reason your heart beats in that chest of yours.”
The wisdom that her mother gave was a light that lit her own dark closet of fear that she had kept herself in.
“Mom,” she said, her voice small, “what if everything changes? What if they meet and our relationship is never the same?”
Ruth paused in thought before she answered.
“It will be going on twenty years” she answered quietly, “since you met your birth mother for the first time. I think we have done pretty well, don‘t you?.”
The love in her mother’s eyes shone bright, and waves of relief flooded Marcia’s heart.
“Thank you mom.”
“You’re welcome, my child.”
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