Painting Life

O n e

O n e - P r o j e c t   F i n d   A   M o m.

H a r i s: 

The flowers twisted and turned in my hands, artfully slipping through my fingers. I had been sitting there for hours, making flower necklaces for every woman in the garden. I wanted to believe that if I gave them these necklaces, they would be happy and take me as their son. 

I carefully placed the necklace next to the others and looked at them with satisfaction, a new hope burning in my raw heart. Excitement made my eyes shine - I could literally feel it - and I bounced up on my feet to start Project Find A Mom. 

I walked towards the first woman I saw with a beautiful, genuine smile pasted on my ten-year old face. She was really pretty, her auburn hair looking oddly similar in the sunlight. 

"Excuze me, Ma'am." I said politely, stopping right in front of her. She almost crashed in to me and looked at me a little angrily. 

"What do you want, kid?" She asked roughly. Her features were contorted in annoyance and she didn't seem so pretty anymore. 

I timidly handed her a flower necklace, hoping to calm her down. She looked at it a little incredulously and then back at me, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. I knew I had shocked her so I shot her a small smile. But when she scowled at the necklace, my hopes turned in to the wind and passed. 

She snatched the necklace away and threw it on the dirty ground. I looked at it in despair, tears now brimming at the edge of my eyes. She stared at me a little, mostly in disapproval, before she walked away, huffing.

The necklace was now stained with mud and looked like the usual garbage you'd find on the ground. I gazed at it unhappily but didn't want to admit defeat so I continued my quest of finding a mother.

My eyes wondered around the wholesome park. Several men were jogging on the track and some women were too but none seemed to be as pretty or friendly. Some school children were playing games and I caught a cute little girl hiding behind a tree. 

Instinct kicked in and I walked towards her with a confidence, unbeknownst to me. She looked at me with warning in her eyes as if to tell me to go away but I was stubborn and didn't understand and made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. 

Wordlessly, I showed her another one of my necklaces. It was the most wonderful one - with purple and white flowers twisted together to form a heart - and I had saved it for someone who I thought was worthy enough for it. 

She looked at it uneasily. "What?" She asked. 

"For you." My voice was raspy and I couldn't even recognize it as mine. 

The spell - or rather; awkward silence - was broken by a squeaky voice yelling "found you"! We both looked behind our shoulders to see another girl coming towards the one I was giving my necklace to. 

I despised the other girl at first sight. She had an arrogant aura around her and when she sneered at me, I stepped back a little; afraid. 

"What do you want, poor boy?" She smirked knowingly. The pretty girl still looked uncomfortable and didn't do anything to correct her friend. Of course, I hadn't expected her to stand up for me. 

"Nothing to do with you, rich girl." I spat back, a foreign rage taking over. I was sick of being taunted and teased. 

The uncomfortable girl gasped and it seemed as if I was the one who was doing the damage. I looked down at the necklace in my hand and decided that I didn't want to mix with these girls. They reeked of trouble. 

As I stalked off, without stopping to listen to their response, the rich girl called out to me. Instead of answering, I looked at the skies and the chirping birds and suddenly wished that I could fly with them. 

It would have been so much better to live with a bunch of birds rather than those cruel, cruel people. 

I was losing faith in recovery and a mother but I pushed myself forward to work harder. I needed to find someone to take care of me.

An old woman was sitting on a bench. She looked lonely and lost and I wanted to make her smile so I trudged towards her a little hesitantly; afraid of failure and shoved the necklace in her lap. 

She looked rather surprised and looked up at me. "What's this?" She asked and I could sense the pleasure in her voice. 

Encouraged, I replied, "For you." 

She ruffled my hair and smiled so brightly, I was afraid she would put the Sun to shame and it would go crawling back in the horizon. I almost told her not to smile like that. "Oh, you sweet, sweet boy." She cooed. 

I smiled shyly and jumped on to the bench and sat next to her. I was eager to have her take me home and have my own happily ever after like all the princes and princesses had in those fairy tale books I heard mothers telling the children. 

The woman put an arm around me, pulling me in a half-hug. "I know what I can do to repay you!" She said suddenly. 

I grinned and my gut told me that this was the moment when she would ask me to come home with her and she would give me all those designer clothes that the rich kids begged about and those toys that I could tinker with. 

She was expecting me to ask her what it was so I asked, "What is it?" 

"I am going to tell you a story!" She said enthusiastically and upon hearing the words, my smile drooped a little. I had wasted my necklace. 

"I don't want to hear a story." I replied moodily and before she could answer back, I got off the bench, not wanting to hear her ramble about a fairy tale. I wanted to build my own first. Then I would read all the fairy tales in the world.