Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings

HOPE DEFERRED

The years passed, time went forward and life in Kimberly’s family became a mixture of hope deferred and turmoil. Some days were better than others; some days were filled with simply survival. Kimberly and Michael learned to be as invisible as possible. It wasn’t a foolproof plan. Sometimes, the house wasn’t big enough for both of them to avoid the cloud of anger and disappointment that filled the rooms and seeped under the doors to envelope them.



            Kimberly never knew which Daddy would show up at the end of the day. At times, he was the good daddy who would sit with her as she proudly showed him her schoolwork or read to him from one of her many library books. The good daddy would even play football or softball with her and Michael, and he laughed at their jokes. Those were the times when Kimberly would convince herself that this daddy was the real daddy; she could almost believe that his good heart would grow big enough and strong enough to blot out the meanness that exploded from him without warning.  Eventually, though, the bad daddy walked through the door at the end of the day and all hopes were dashed. The man who walked through the door on those days was scary and angry. His presence sent Kimberly and Michael scurrying in search of a place to disappear.



            Kimberly’s mother seemed to have perfected the art of disappearing. Every day she faded away a little more. Occasionally though, without any warning, the heavy clouds surrounding her would lift and she would become the mother of Kimberly’s dreams. During those times, when their mommy was happy, Kimberly and Michael were happy, too. Happy Mommy took them to the library, taught them to play Scrabble and even arranged for picnics at the beach with their cousins. But, the best part of all was Happy Mommy’s laugh. Kimberly lived for that laugh and knew that if there was just some way to make her mommy laugh like that more often, their lives would be very different. The best times in her life were when she could make her mommy laugh. Happy Mommy’s laugh could even make the cloud of anger disappear from their house for a while.



            But, Happy Mommy always went away, disappearing back into the cloud of anger, fading away as unexpectedly as Happy Mommy had appeared. As Kimberly and her brother got older, their daddy got angrier and their mommy faded away more and more.  By the time they were both teenagers, both Kimberly and Michael had learned it was too painful to hope that their lives would ever be any different. They took solace in knowing they had each other, like survivors of a war.



            ………to be continued………..