Severing Ties (Book 2. Ties)

37. Moth

"Time is too slow for those who wait,

Too long for those who grieve,

Too short for those who rejoice,

But for those who love, time is

Eternity."

Faith stared at me in confusion, so she decided to ask what I had read.

I laid the tablet down on my bed and looked up at her lovely eyes. "It's a poem by Henry Van Dyke. It's about death," I told her as I signed.

The little girl continued to have a look of incomprehension. She was two, so it made sense the words "poem" and "death" made absolutely no sense to her. I then opted to explain things differently. Describing a poem was easier than describing death. "It's like a short story," I said, so it was a simpler way of putting a poem into perspective. "Death... Well death is when a person is really sick or really old and they have to close their eyes forever. You cannot see the person who dies ever again."

"Forever," she asked with her hands. In reply, I nodded. Her eyes began to sadden. In her own way she told me she never wanted me to get old and close my eyes.

All I could do was grab her and squish her in a hug. The kid was a brat sometimes, but she was also very sweet and compassionate. The way she saw the world was illuminating.

Everything I taught her, she remembered. It was both good in bad. A few days later after I had read her the poem, I was going to kill a moth that had somehow gotten inside our home, but Faith stopped me. She told me the moth had a family and its family would miss it if it did not return to them and closed its eyes forever. Faith was a literal little person with a striking memory, but that made her all the more special.

Everywhere she went she captivated someone's attention with her intellect. Her speech was still developing, so she relied more on sign language to get her message across quicker. The lack of speech did not impede her from entrapping people's attention and affection; everybody was hooked on anything she expressed.

Even at Stephanie's graduation, Faith managed to make friends with a stranger. It was a warm August day when my best friend received her Bachelor's in Accounting. The a/c, inside the auditorium where the ceremony was held, was refreshing and a little two-year-old made it more obvious than the rest of us. She lifted her hands and breathed out in relief. Little did she know she had not experienced real heat.

Texas offered a whole different degree of hot weather. Summers were spent by the pool or inside because it was too hot. For a second, I missed my old home. Summer in Texas was like opening a heated oven, but it was home. It did not matter that I had been living in New York for four years. I did not have the best memories from the Southern state, but there were some good things. But New York had entrapped me, and I had become accustomed to the loud and busy. I was never going back to Texas; there was nothing for me there anymore.

"Oh my. It's hot, isn't it?" An older woman with her husband to her side were trying to catch little Faith's attention.

I tapped Faith's shoulder, so she could turn. Signing and speaking, I told her the couple was talking to her. By their expressions, I knew they had realized Faith's hearing was abnormal, but they quickly masked their surprise with smiles.

Over the course of one year, my sister had been more receptive to sounds. Her speech was slower to catch up, but then again what two-year-old spoke perfectly? So when the old man asked her how old she was, Faith watched his lips and listened intently. Then, she raised her hand to indicate she was two. The old couple smiled brightly because she had responded. I instantly liked them because most people tried to speak very loudly and enunciate each word for Faith, but they did not. They spoke to her kindly and normally. Eventually we found our seats and listened to hundreds of names being called to receive a diploma.