Blood Type

Cary sighed and flopped down onto her bed dramatically. Her parents were probably the worst parents in the history of lame parents.

(Yes, she was exaggerating. Yes, she was aware of it. No, she wasn’t going to stop.)

They weren’t going to answer her questions. They weren’t even going to acknowledge that she had questions and that they would have to answer them at some point.

(They were likely to actually go to their graves holding onto this secret, she suspected. It seemed to be that kind of secret and it was driving her nuts.)

It had started with a simple Biology assignment for school. They were learning about genetics and how they affect blood types within the family. Her parents were both Type O and she was Type AB. She looked like her parents and she was fairly certain that her mother hadn’t cheated on her father.

(They just didn’t have that vibe and what prodding she’d done had shown up as her parents being completely faithful to one another. And that they were both very aware that she apparently wasn’t theirs,thank you very much.)

Their manner towards her had never been any different from the way they treated her younger brother.

(Who was their biological child. She’d been there when her parents had explained why Mommy’s tummy was getting bigger and why she was going to have a younger brother. That had been a very traumatic thing to realize when she’d first gone through puberty and realized just what her parents would have to have done in order for her younger brother to be there at all.)

“This is going to bug me until the day I die if I don’t figure it out,” she mumbled to herself.

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Cover the Emptiness

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She pulled on her father’s boots last, taking the time to do up all the laces and then tuck the excess into the side around her feet. The boots were large, larger than she had initially thought.

But at the same time, they were just the right size.

Her father wasn’t at home. In fact, he hadn’t been at home for a very long time. He likely wouldn’t be home for several more months, if he came home at all.

So she would pull on his boots and walk around the house in them all day long. If she had to leave to do anything, the boots would go with her, slowing her down and reminding her that they didn’t fit.

They would never fit.

But it would keep her father closer to her throughout the day.

She would do this every month for one whole day until her father came back from his tour of duty.

Mary smiled as she clomped around the house, making enough noise to cover up the emptiness.

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Written for today’s Light and Shade Challenge: http://lightandshadechallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/light-and-shade-challenge-monday-26th.html

Also written in honor of not only the men and women that serve our country but their families who are without during their service.

Thank you.

Fear is a Four Letter Word

With so much going on,

I never have enough time

To find the comfort needed.

 

An early wake up call,

A mother in need,

Drive there as fast as can be.

 

Quick, take your wife,

Your beloved companion for life

To the hospital to make sure she’s all right.

 

Children are sleeping,

Dreaming sweet dreams

Unaware of the fear surrounding their parents.

 

And here I sit at home,

All alone and yet not,

Praying that no more pain will come.

 

They’ve been through so much,

Five pregnancies, three of which turned out all right;

Please don’t let this one go like the first.

 

A child was lost so long ago

And though there have been three cheerful smiles since,

These two unborn lives might be at risk.

 

So I sit here,

Wrapped in my fear

And Pray that it will be enough.

---

One of my sister’s had a scare this morning in the wee hours. She’s currently pregnant with twins; they are her fifth pregnancy. She has three beautiful children, but her first pregnancy was a miscarriage. Her husband was able to call another sister of ours to come and watch their young children this morning while he drove his wife to the hospital. He let us know that both heartbeats are going strong at the moment, but is still very shaken.

Mom went over an hour ago to help out for the day.All I can do is to pray that they will be all right.

White Out

“Father, forgive me.” she whispered even as she brought the weapon in her hands down over his head.

The old man slumped over in his chair, the book that had been in his hands hit the floor with a dull thump. his head tilted against the side of the wing-back armchair he had been sitting in before the fire that continued to crackle on in front of him.

The old man had been kind to her in a way that not many had ever been. He wasn’t her father, but he had been someone’s. Even now she could see the pictures hanging on the walls with faces smiling at her from still frames.

He had never talked about the children he and his wife had before her death, but she could tell that he had loved them. She didn’t know why he was alone during this time of year, but he had taken her in off the streets and given her a place to stay during the blizzard that continued to blow even now. She glanced out the window at the wash of white that reflected the light of the fire. It was bright out tonight, as bright as it had been when she’d first slumped on the porch, no knowing that it even was a porch. He’d found her when he’d gone out to fetch more wood for the fire, but she was unconscious by then.

For all his kindness, there had been an evil in him that he hadn’t been aware of. An evil that she could feel and she mourned having to do this, but knew that he would break free of whatever it was that was holding in the evil before the snow had finished settling and the blizzard had passed.

She didn’t like thinking about how she knew this, just accepted the fact that she knew it and needed to take steps in order to stop it, no matter how distasteful those steps were.

She would burn the body once the blizzard stopped, but until then he would be placed in the woodshed where his frozen body would not decay.

With trembling fingers she closed his sightless eyes.

“I’m sorry, Father.” she whispered once again.

---

Written for this week’s Trifecta challenge and no I have no idea where this story came from. It demanded to be written as vaguely as possible and wouldn’t leave me be.

http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/12/trifecta-week-108.html

Parents of the Bride/Groom

This is the last time you get to look at your daughter or son and know that they are just yours. They are in your family first and when it comes to familial loyalties, everyone else would be second. Once they’re married, on the other hand, they aren’t yours first anymore; they are someone else’s.

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

“And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife.” (Matthew 19:5)

When your child marries, they are starting a new family and that family is now their first priority in all things. That doesn’t mean that you are thrown by the wayside or completely discarded, but it means that you are no longer the most important person in their lives.

They have grown up learning from you, what to do or say or how to live. Even if it’s learning these things by your example they are still learning by watching you. You have put your blood, sweat and tears into raising this child and now they are going off away from you. They will still be your child, but that won’t be the first thing people think about them anymore.

That doesn’t mean that they don’t still need you. You may not be the first person they run to when in need of help, that honor is now for their spouse, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t exist anymore.

Sometimes it’s hard to know this. Our world has become so busy and there are so many problems and solutions to everything and anything that people often forget (or want to forget) where they came from. But there will always be something of you in these grown up people that used to need you for everything. You raised them after all and some part of them will always remember that, even if it’s only in the little things. But you are important, because your child is here and getting married and that wouldn’t have been possible without you in the first place.

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7)

“But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.” (Mosiah 4:15)

They know what a family is because of you. They know what to do and what not to do because of you.

They are not trying to hurt you by leaving you. They want to go out and do what you have taught them with their own family started.

“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” (Exodus 20:12)

Thank you for raising us to be able to do the things we do. Thank you for being there for us when we fell and when we flew through the skies. Thank you for loving us enough to let us go.

Written in honor of my mother, who went to Hell and back for her children and quietly loved us all.