She smiled at me when I walked past and gave me a hug. She liked me, it was obvious. She was going to come over to my house after church and bake me cookies; she made the best chocolate chip cookies. Her skin was as smooth as my rubber ducky, and her dress was the color of my favorite green crayon. Her name was Marie. I walked away with my head held high and my chest puffed out. I sauntered over to my Sunday school class and began playing with the dinosaurs. As luck would have it, Marie was our kindergarten teacher today. I got to stare at her tootsie-roll-colored hair all day. She even helped me to glue my pictures down, a true sign of devotion.
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I looked over at Sam, who was dreamily looking in my direction. Who knew what was going in that child’s mind at the moment. I had just signed up to be the assistant teacher for the church’s kindergarten classes, and I was finding out that toddlers weren’t all fun and games. I was going over to Sam’s house after church and I would probably end up watching Cars 2 with a noisy audience. I focused my brain and started pouring water into the micro paper cups used for the snack and their water.
Good news! We watched Shaun the Sheep instead. Sam had curled up in my lap during the movie and had fallen fast asleep. I noted how easily it was that a little child could be an angel one moment and the next a walking bomb. My family and I quietly, as not to wake anybody, said our good byes and went home. I walked in to my family room, and there on the table were three new movies. The rest of the night was spent with popcorn and a box of tissues.
I got up and looked around the room from my bunk bed. Shannon, my sister, had forgotten to clean her side of the room, and now we would be both be blamed. Joy. I tiptoed as quietly as I could toward the other side of the room and grabbed the book Shannon had been reading. I ran into the living room, turned my flashlight on, and enjoyed the book. That is, until Shannon woke up and noticed that her book was missing from her shelf…
I had gotten the royal chewing out from Shannon but in my personal opinion it was worth it. My mom had left us at home when she went to the grocery store. We had been trying to focus on our homework but, eventually we broke down and were having a foosball championship. Mom had been gone for four hours but we didn’t worry that much; she was very talkative. Our living room was very wide and roomy, with a foosball table in the center. The couch was positioned right in front of the computer and a grandfather clock stood grandly next to it. We were in the middle of the game point when something weird happened.
We looked out the window and two police cars were parked in front of our lawn. They stepped out of their vehicles and they walked towards our door and rang the doorbell. Now, Shannon and I knew this was important; nobody rang the doorbell nowadays. Shannon cautiously opened the door, I knew something was wrong; their heads were bent and their hands were fumbling. The policeman with blonde hair spoke up. “There was an incident at the mall, where many people died. Most of the people who were murdered were just shoppers who decided to enter Macys; your mother was one of those people who were found dead..” Shannon and I stared blankly at the two policemen facing us; processing what he had just said.
Our stepfather came home from work early; he was just as shocked as we were. He had married our mother two years after our real dad had died. He had been celebrating his third anniversary with our mom just a week ago, and now all that he had left of her were two teenagers that needed security. The court was going to decide who had legal custody over Shannon and me in a month, which gave us a little bit of time to heal. The day of the court case we had to dress in long black skirts. We were hoping that we would be able to stay with our step dad but, who knows what the judge would decide. Our grandparents had come down from North Dakota all the way to Virginia to be there for us.
The case started and I didn’t have a clue what they were saying but my stepdads face was clouding over and the judge sounded very grave. My sister was crying and I desperately wanted to know what was going on; but in my heart I already knew. We weren’t going to be able to stay with our stepdad, he had said he had done something that he regretted but never went farther than that. Now I knew that that thing had teared our family apart.
Shannon and I started the difficult task of packing up all our belongings and leaving the house that we had always known. Our stepdad made himself scarce, finding it hard to lose his wife and daughters in the same month. The judge had chosen our Mother’s parents to be our official guardians and we were going to move to North Dakota. We were trying to draw out the process but we knew that we couldn’t push back the time of departure again. The dread filled day was finally upon us and after tearful good byes to our friends and stepdad, we boarded the plane with our grandparents and started a new journey in North Dakota.
One thing I first noticed when I got off the plane was that Septembers in Virginia were a lot different from Septembers in North Dakota. The jacket that my grandparents had sent me that was totally uncute at home was dug from my suitcase and now was pretty nice considering the weather at the time. Shannon and I were awed by the amount of snow that was everywhere, even in September. We walked up the steps of our new home and our Grandma slid the key into the door and led us inside. The house was small but homey with the fireplace in the center of the living room and a large leather couch that sat facing the fireplace. It felt weird for me to be living with people that I had seen only once a year before. My grandmother showed us to our room and then left, letting us unpack all our stuff by ourselves. The room was much smaller than our old one but it would have to do. We slowly started unpacking our stuff, wishing that our mother had just not gone to the mall that particular day.
Our mother had been strong; we learned where she had gotten that strength. Our grandmother lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t believe in asking for help so she and her husband and their six kids had worked their butts off to create a thriving farm. She believed that it was her duty to get her children used to hard work so that they could achieve their goals. So, on the second day that we had been there we started harvesting each individual turnip and bringing around a huge watering can to water the unripe ones because she didn’t believe in machines doing the work for you. That also meant that you had to entertain yourself without any television or video games.
My sister Shannon, was about to turn eighteen and she couldn’t wait to hightail herself out of that little farm and find herself a husband. She was excited, but her excitement faded when she realized that she would have to leave me behind. I was beginning to enjoy the hard work and all the time to myself, but my sister wasn’t satisfied. She finally came up with a plan. As soon as she turned eighteen and had an apartment, she was going to adopt me. I was fifteen and not so sure as she was about the plan, but it wasn’t long before her excitement rubbed off on me and we were both counting down the days until she turned eighteen. Our grandmother didn’t fully approve but she gave her consent because she wanted us to learn what real life was like. We ignored her warnings and before we knew it, it was Shannon’s birthday. She had saved enough money for an apartment and gotten a job at a restaurant so she thought she was ready. She had filled out the adoption papers and we were giddy with excitement. The only present she got was from Grandma; inside the box were cans and cans of soups and beans and other emergency food. We were confused but Shannon acted pleased and before we knew it we were moving into our new home.
The days passed and we were figuring out fast that Shannon’s meager income was not enough to supply for rent and two hungry mouths to feed. The cans of emergency food had already been dug into and I was looking around for jobs that allowed fifteen year olds to work there. Shannon’s crazy spirit was being tamed through the hardships that came to pass. Many times I just sat and cried in our closet because I did not want Shannon to see me because she worked so hard to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. There were many nights where we did not have enough food to put on the table and we fasted and prayed for wisdom of what to do next.
One night, while we were eating our supper of rice and beans we heard a baby’s wale on our porch step. We deserted our meal and found a little deformed baby wrapped in a blanket. The baby looked cold and hungry so we brought him in and Shannon began feeding him some beans, which he ate hungrily. The little baby was placed in one of our dresser drawers surrounded by layers of clothing and he fell asleep.
I found a job at an old restaurant and now we were able to afford food and clothes for the baby—whom we named Jacob—and some extra treats. Jacob’s wailing did not help the stressful situations around our home. Because Shannon worked full time and I could only work part time I got the job of taking care of the baby and making sure that he was well fed and that his diapers were clean. I also had to wash all of the clothing and I had to do all of the hand-washing because we couldn’t afford a dishwasher or a clothes washer. Life had been hard but we always knew we were safe. Grandma’s house was a constant place of rest where advice and a hot cup of coffee, could always be found.
She never actually gave food or money, but her advice would always help Shannon and me get through harder times. She taught me how to handle Jacob and what he wanted when he did different things. She was the rock that kept us from flying away until we learned not to put a kite out on a windy day with no string. Her presence let us know that everything was going to be okay. She died of a stroke two months after we had moved into our own apartment, following her husband who had left this earth two years prior. My kite was flailing and I needed a rock.
Shannon was gone most of the time and so I took care of myself, contemplating what responsibilities I had to do. Shannon was going on dates with one guy a lot more often and I was left home with Jacob who kept me company. I was trying to keep a normal schedule but I was having a hard time not being depressed. I was looking into Jacob for the fulfillment I needed and I wasn’t finding it there. I hadn’t cracked my bible since the day my mother had left, but I knew that I needed to see the words that were written out on the pages. I had put Jacob on my knee and I pulled my bible from the shelf and turned to a random verse. In the verse it said; “I am your rock and your salvation.” I knew that I needed to pour myself out to God and go back to him because he was the only rock that could keep us stable.
Shannon disappeared with her boyfriend several days after I opened my bible. Life was getting tough and God was forcing me to lean on him through the times of trouble. My job at the restaurant did not afford enough formula and diapers for the baby, so I was constantly using leftover pieces of cloth. I had to move into an even smaller apartment with only one big room that consisted of the kitchen and the bedroom. Jacob was growing like a weed and it was hard to keep up with him while I was making his clothes. I looked around for jobs that would pay a little more than my old one but met with no luck. The state thought that Shannon was home, making it harder to conceal the fact every day.
Shannon came home a different person then when she left. Her boyfriend had deserted her after figuring out she had no money. She had to work at a factory until she could afford a ticket to come back home. She would hear nothing of God and she did her work mechanically and when she smiled, her smile had a shadow hidden carefully behind it. Life was different when Shannon came home; her life consisted of work during the day and social outings at night. It was like talking to a mumbling parrot whenever I talked to her. The average conversation went a lot like this example.
“Hey Shannon, how are you doing?” I would say.
“Fine.” She would mumble
“Do you want anything?”
“No”
“How was your day?”
“Fine, leave me alone.”
She was a lot different from that girl who couldn’t keep a smile off of her face a year ago. Jacob turned one and we had a little mini birthday party. He was crawling everywhere and learning words. He was my joy in that time of trouble when Shannon was working through all of the hurts of her life. I prayed for her every day but she remained distant.
When Shannon began working again we were able to move into a small one story house that had five rooms, a big improvement from our last home. Shannon and I chose separate rooms and I took the slightly larger one because I was sharing with toddling Jacob. The rooms were very open because we didn’t have much stuff to fill in the empty holes. I knew that Shannon had an empty hole in her life and she was trying to fill it up, without much success.
The leaves on the trees were drying up and the trees were becoming dormant. The air was crisp and cool, with a hint of snow. Shannon’s attitude reflected the changing weather. Her attitude went from distant to becoming fake, pretending that she was okay when I knew that the hurt of her breakup with her boyfriend was still there. A changing point occurred on the day God decided to let his amazing snowflakes crawl to the ground.
I had put the laundry out on the clothesline the night before, and it naturally dampened my mood to see all of my freshly cleaned clothes being soaked by the snow. Shannon had come up behind me when I was looking out the window and she squealed with delight. She ran into her closet and grabbed her wool jacket and my fleece, plus two pairs of mittens, joy creased every corner of her face. I decided to join the excitement and put on the coat and mittens she handed me and I suited Jacob up in his snowsuit. I walked out feeling embarrassed when my sister—now twenty—was making snow angels and throwing snowballs at me. Her smile was contagious and soon I found myself doing the same weird things. Our cheerful laughter floated high into the clouds and I thanked God for bringing the snow that brought my sister out of her secluded hiding place.
She grabbed my hand and said, “Do you have the sled?”
“Yes,” and I ran into the house. I protruded a few minutes later with a bright yellow sled. We danced around, acting like preschoolers. Even Jacob decided to join the fun and started trying to make a snow angel.
She looked at me in the eye and said, “I always thought that my family was torn apart, so I never appreciated the one that was right in front of my eyes.”
I looked at her, “It is not finished yet, because all families can’t survive without God as their main love.” She just sniffled and cried into my shoulder. I knew that everything was going to be okay when I looked around and I saw my little boy playing in the snow and my sister making snowballs to stuff down my shirt. I knew that everything was complete, but I could not resist the touch of sadness of not seeing my stepfather and my mother with us to enjoy the celebration of the snow. I prayed that someday my sister and I—with Jacob—would be able to meet up with my stepfather. I knew that if it was God’s will then I would be able to see my stepdad someday. Yet, no one understands the will of God.
Shannon and I raced around the room, giddy with excitement. We had been waiting for this day for three years. Our home was bare; the only sign of our living there were a few packing boxes in the corner. Jacob was running after us, eager to be part of the fun. We stared at the plane tickets in Shannon’s hand, still not believing that we would be able to live by our stepfather again. We climbed into our car and strapped Jacob in his car seat. We drove to the airport and unloaded all our stuff and put it on the plane. Shannon and I sat across from each other eager to see our stepdad whom we had only been able to send cards and packages to before. The plane started rolling and we started lifting into the air.
We drove past old stores that we had once bought fifty cent candies and makeup at. Our minds were all focused though, we started worrying about our stepdad and how he would react to our surprise, or if he didn’t recognize us. We stopped in front of the house we once called home and got out of the car. We quietly tiptoed up to the front door and rang the doorbell. We heard shuffling, and then the knob turning. We held our breath when the door opened and a familiar face peeked out.
His eyes filled with tears as he gave us a big bear hug. He looked at us both, unbelief shining in his eyes. We went back to the car and brought Jacob out who was very curious about the new individual. My stepdad wanted to hear all about our lives. When he heard that we were going to live in the house across from him, he was overcome with joy. Our family was complete, our lives were full, and we could survive through anything. I knew that I was blessed to be able to have a family that loved and cherished me.