For every child, or so I've heard it told, the love of their parents is vital for their hearts to grow.
So why is it that for so many children, myself included, it simply didn't cut it?
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that my parents divorced when I was just five years old, their marriage a lie too difficult to keep up, a play too exhausting to keep performing.
But why?
Why was Mommy so tired, so unhappy, when all around her people smiled and told her how beautiful her life appeared?
Why was Daddy always slipping outside for days on end, why did always feel like he was playing pretend?
Why?
My little mind couldn't grasp my situation, my perception of my world was faded until at last the very reflection of the mirror of reality shattered and I was left to stumble as I desperately tried to glue the pieces back together
One hurricane and a hundred fights later, we were on our own. Daddy had found a new Mommy and Mommy had found a man who made her smile.
He didn't make me smile.
I remember clearly meeting him for the first time, the door opening to reveal pretty blue eyes and long blonde hair that seemed to me like he was trying to play dress up as me, but simply couldn't figure out how to get it right.
He smiled down, his doll eyes bright like a shiny new toy at Christmas, and I saw him speak but didn't hear the words.
All I could hear inside my mind was "You're not Daddy".
But I said nothing.
I said nothing as we moved into his dollhouse, as he gave us food to eat and toys to play with.
I said nothing as Mommy cried happy tears at a wedding that felt like a eulogy, the speeches given pretty but to my young ears seemed like the lullaby sung at a dead girl's grave.
I said nothing as my little baby brother looked up at me, his blue eyes just like his fathers, but his little smile so completely different.
Pop only smiled like that when he knew the other toys were looking.
I said nothing at school, where I laughed and played and tried to pretend everything was wonderful, that I was sure Mommy would show up to the next concert, or the next recital, or surely the next time I had a solo.
I said nothing when my teachers asked me why I was so happy in the morning, but never seemed happy when the last bell rang and the big yellow bus would come to take me back to prison.
I said nothing.
Nothing when Mommy didn't even know my favorite color, or why I no longer seemed to remember how to smile. Not a word did I say when Sissy hissed at me, her pretty brown eyes full of hatred as I screamed "I'M SORRY"!
And I was, I WAS sorry, but I couldn't tell a soul, couldn't speak a single word to anyone but God.
God, who was supposedly this great big ball of love who followed me wherever I went, who loved me and died for me, who made all things new and set the captives free.
I believed in God, How could I not?
But love? Freedom? For me? No.
If Jesus loved me, if he even knew my name, Then wouldn't I be happy? Wouldn't I be Home?
I wanted to go Home.
Mommy said the pills would take me there if I ever took too many, and that I must be very careful never to forget it.
So I never did.
I never forgot those words, even as I never spoke them.
I never said a word, after all...
Not when Mommy cried, or Pop screamed, or Sissy Glared, or Daddy smiled, or Demmy asked what was wrong when I escaped to her house to play.
I never said a word, even when the screams of anger became tears of terror.
I could never tell if they were mine or Mommy's.
I didn't tell anybody that I wanted to go Home, that whenever someone mentioned Heaven, I remembered the pills waiting like old friends in the cabinet by the sink.
I don't remember the fight, but I remember the aftermath: A broken girl, A tear-stained pillow, a broken sob as my little fingers took hold of the bottle.
They had looked like candy, like little bits of freedom that would bring me somewhere better, somewhere where Mommy always came to my concerts, where Daddy wasn't a treat, wasn't an escape, where Sissy was my friend, where I remembered how to smile.
I knew it was bad, but I figured God couldn't hate me more than he already did, and that he might let me come Home a little early for the trouble.
But I couldn't take the pills, couldn't move my hand closer to my awaiting mouth. It felt like some imaginary friend had taken hold of my body, and it made me put the candy away.
I remember crying, sobbing, wanting to scream, wanting to break, wanting not to be a broken china doll.
I remember praying, begging God to help me, so save me, to take me Home.
I offered him candy, offered him promises to do better in school, to stop watching so much TV and reading so many books.
I offered him my soul if he would just make the hurt go away.
His answer came a few weeks later, in the form of a dream.
A dream of clouds made of gold, and lights that seemed to sing, and a man with funny circles in his hands.
He danced with me, he laughed with me, and in the end, I woke knowing, even as I cried happy tears for the first time in so many years, that for a moment I had been Home.
I knew, at that moment, that I would be Okay, that it would get worse but then It would get better and then, finally, when He had finally finished his work in Me, I would finally get to go Home.
I'm still waiting, and he's still working, but I know that healing is a process, and It's one I am happy to pursue. I finally understand the price of silence, and that sometimes it is better to sing, to shout, than to let unspoken words eat you alive.
But all of this is okay, because my story is helping people, and I know that Jesus has so much planned for my life that will make every tear worth it.
I know that, with every passing day, I am one step closer to dancing on those clouds again.
So here's my question for you:
Will you stay silent, or will you let him bring you Home?
