Moments

Chapter One - Part 1

I heard Dr. Phil say that there are seven pivotal moments in a person's life. At least, I think that's what he said. When I got up this morning, I had no idea today was going to be one of them.

I sat in the waiting room of Mercy Hospital for what felt like days; it hadn't been long at all. I watched the second hand on the clock tick with unbearable sluggishness as random thoughts crossed my mind.

I hate how these socks pull down in the back when I walk.

Time is a funny thing. I wish I had taken physics in college.

This chair is surprisingly comfortable. Hmmm, I wonder if they got a discount.

Did Einstein say time was an illusion? I wonder if there's time in the afterlife.

That woman's shirt is the exact color of mustard.

The second hand rushed forward with each new second then seem to pull back the tiniest fraction of an inch. I felt lost in my thoughts and began reliving the pivotal moments of my life.

Click-click-click

"I'm not going to church and you can't make me." I said in the calmest most dignified voice my ten year old self could have. I knew this was important to dad and that it was waging World War Three-hundred and eight, but I didn't like it there. Mom had been dead two years and since then, church and God both unleashed an over the top anger deep within me. Being there made me feel controlled, lied to, and suffocated. Dad didn't understand and I lacked the verbal skills to understand it for what it was, much less explain it to him.

"Allysum Rose Garner, you will get in that car to go to church or I will stuff you in there myself!" I rolled my eyes at the use of my full name. I never like being named after my mother's favorite flowers. What a dumb way to pick your daughter's name. Really! My mom's name had been Lillian Rose, the flower thing had been started by my Great-Grandmother Violet. Since the flower names were paired with a last name that sounded close to gardener I was an easy target for teasing from the fourth grade boys. I watched the vein on his left temple bulge.

"No, I'm not going back there again," I folded my arms across my chest and stood up as tall as I could. Church had become a symbol of the pain and of the stupid things people said, genuinely trying to be consoling, but coming up short. God needed his angel. I know how you feel. Really? She's in a better place. Heaven needed her more. By the end, just hearing, "I'm so sorry," had irritated me. No one was sorrier or needed her more than I did, except maybe Dad, but I hadn't considered that at ten years old. Even though the weeks droned on, I hated the looks of pity from well-meaning church-family.

Even all these year later I felt the blood in my cheeks rise as I remembered my Dad's anger at me for being so defiant. He tried guilt, threatening me, punishing me and once even physically man handling me to the car. He was so livid one Sunday morning that I worried that he might back hand me, but he never hit me. Although I believe sometimes the scars from a nasty lecture can take longer to heal than a whipping.

It was like that for nearly two months. The tension made me wreck, but my anger at God was stronger than the fear of my father. Finally, one Sunday he gave up.

I won that battle but the war raged on in its own way. Each of us dealing with grief, loss, depression and shutting the other out. We never even realized what the other one was feeling. I felt a wave of sadness as that thought sunk in. For a few years, we were strangers, each locked in our own self-made prison. Were we in a prison or perhaps we were containing our pain the only way we knew how?