A thin, shiny ringlet of hair curled in the mother’s fingers.
Her child sat upon her lap; their reflections stared back at them in the hairdresser’s mirror.
He was but 18 months; she, 28 years.
She already knew whom he favored, and it wasn’t her, even though she’d be the one to raise him.
The relationship was more of a fling than a future.
And yet, the child would now write on every page to follow.
She prays the memories yet to be made are kind to them both.
But who really knows?
Life is hard, even on the good days.
She had met the boy’s father while helping her grandmother move into a nursing facility.
Mark worked as a nursing assistant and helped Emily’s grandmother with everything from getting dressed to reading aloud daily social media snippets.
“He is a handsome young man,” her grandmother told Emily, with Mark standing beside her. “Don’t you think so?”
Emily was perhaps drawn to Mark through that connection more than any other. She was closest to her grandmother, appreciating her gift of painting and her love of life, especially others.
“Love them where they’re at,” she would always tell Emily.
Her grandmother passed within six months of arriving at Everyn Nursing Home. Emily delivered Charles six months later.
She still has her grandmother’s belongings halfheartedly taped in stacked cardboard boxes, two of which have become a makeshift TV tray.
Emily eats dinner sitting on the couch each evening, her plate upon the box. Charles nuzzles against her knees, his weight shifting as he hits the side of the boxes with excitement.
He is such a happy child. So much that Emily must stop herself from being jealous of him.
Yet, she doesn’t want happiness. She wants peace.
And she waits for it like an expected guest who is running late, leaving her anxious and unsettled.
“All done!” the hairdresser announced.
Emily turned Charles around and kissed his plump face from ear to ear. “What a handsome young man you are! So very, very handsome!” she exclaimed as Charles giggled so purely that she couldn’t help but to laugh with him.
Dinner that evening was tomato soup and grilled cheese, neither of which she finished because Charles toppled the bowl upside down while Emily was briefly in the bathroom.
“Oh, no!” Emily shouted, first checking Charles for injury, then looking at the soaked boxes. “Grandma’s things!”
She left the mess to open the box. She paused as she picked up the first item, now with small, pinkish wet blotches. It was a small sketch her grandmother had drawn in pencil on the back of a paper menu from their favorite diner. Emily would take her there for French silk pie and coffee.
The image was of a large oak tree with children playing underneath. Emily remembered her grandmother sketching it, telling her then that she would one day be a wonderful mother.
She hopes she is, despite her exhaustion.
Charles was now crying, grabbing at the hem of her shirt.
“I’m not mad, Charles. You’re okay. It’s all okay,” Emily said, taking him into her arms. The wetness of the spilled soup on Charles’ clothes now felt cold against her arms.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”
The boxes were unpacked the next day. All of them.
Sometimes it just takes a little time to unpack life.
Life is hard, even on the good days.
Emily placed the ringlet of hair from Charles’ first haircut in a tiny jewelry box.
Life continues.
Perhaps peace isn’t something we wait for, but something we find when we stop wishing life were somewhere other than where it is.
Love them where they’re at.
Even yourself.
This column was originally published by CherryRoad Media. For more faith-based columns and inspirational writing by Tiffany Kaye Chartier, follow her on Facebook. Her devotional collection “The 4-Minute Reset: For Cultivating Peace, Purpose, and Positivity” is available on Amazon and other major online retailers.
Provided by Dallas Express
