| SUDDENLY A TEAR c 1993 Jeanne Adams Jimmy heard a grownup conversation yesterday� Agitated, angry voices raked his safe six years away: �Don�t you ever tell that child!!� �WHY?? If you did what you thought right! �Shouldn�t Jimmy know you sent his brother�s splintered baby body out into eternal night?� Jimmy screamed: �What does it mean??� They tried to quiet down his fears� Pacify, excuse, explain, down to his six years. Jimmy thought a long, long time, then in a child�s sweet voice Innocently asked six-year-old questions about choice: �Mommy, did my older brother look at all like me? �Could we have gone fishin� sometimes? �Run across the field together; shinny up a tree? �Does he speak my name from heaven? �Can you hear him cry: �Mom-- �I would have loved you so much�I really didn�t want to die.�� _______________ Peggy slams the front room door coming from the game Graduate, and honor student, never will be quite the same. Ran into Mom�s old acquaintance: �So your mother had a child! �After that abortion we were so concerned because she seemed withdrawn, depressed and then went wild�--- Peggy screams: �What does it mean?? �Would it have been a boy?� �No, dear, you�d have had an older sister.� Suddenly a tear marks a track of disillusion down a cheek of pain. �Mother, will you answer me? Don�t lie to me again!� �Mother, was my sister pretty? Did you see her face? �Were two daughters too much for you? What if it were me instead inside you�in her place? �Why did you reject her, Mother? What if she�d been me? � Would you have told her I was just an unnecessary pregnancy?� |
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