Time
You heal all wounds, they say, and smile sympathy. I tuck away treasured, torturous pictures, and wait. You crawl and stumble.
You pass and pass.
A knock at the door. A rueful, beloved, face, gazes at me with hope. A boy, bigger now, but still small, reaches up.
It’s time.
The story of this story
In many ways this story is a prayer. And in some ways, a prediction. I’ve been a prodigal and can speak to the reality.
I remember years spent in pursuit of ugly things. In thrall to ugly people. And it's been a long time since I was there, but I've always understood intimately my own process--my own journey--from dark to light.
I remember coming home. Bringing my boys home.
And my family was there to take me in. In spite of all the years I knew they were wrong. In spite of all the ways I told them with my words and my actions that I was better off without them, that they were foolish and didn't understand.
They were there.
And it's only recently that I've spent more time in the contemplation of what those years were for my mother. My mother who cannot sleep unless I've texted her I made it home from the grocery ten minutes up the road. My mother who cannot let two days pass without hearing my voice. My mother who at sixty tells this forty-one year old daughter I am her baby.
How did time pass for her?
I imagine in hope and sometimes despair. I myself hope more of the former than the latter. And I know that there are mothers like mine and daughters like I was, for whom time is still lurching in its crooked way. And I know they are in pain. But I also know, I came home.
In due time.
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