Baby Grace

John was a young, ambitious mechanic that could “fix” anything, except the drowning sorrow of his alcoholic, fiancée but that didn’t stop him from trying.

He worked diligently to make her past nightmares disappear; but the more he tried, the more those dreams became her reality. There was no escape. She accepted her defeat and wore it proudly like a badge of honor. This is who she was and it’s where she belonged.  She was breathing and surviving. That was all she knew.

Life hadn’t been too kind to mom and she was a product of unspoken generational curses. It was her fate due to being conceived in darkness. Pain was rooted in her bloodline. There was no celebration of life, just shame and guilt meet by disappointment of another mouth to feed. There was no crib, warm blankets or formula. There was a foreign object offered to her when she cried but it was attached to a tired soul. There was grief and suffering transmitted through those swollen mammal glands. Feeding was painful and rushed. There was farm work calling before the early morning sunrise. Her mother needed her strength to pick cotton, feed hogs and kill chickens. The family depended solely on her hands to provide the next meal.

Mom wept daily for the lost innocence of childhood memories, but she clang to “hope” of raising her own child one day. That strong mechanic of hers that was good with his hands would create the perfect fairytale ending for sure.

Trying to conceive naturally was out of the question. There were complications but dad was desperate. He gathered his life savings and found a black market clinic that would finally make mom happy. She would no longer spend her days numbing her pain with whiskey bottles. He held the solution to her unanswered prayers. (Modern day Ishmael in the making.)

Nine months later, a bouncing baby girl entered the world, but she didn’t cry. She was scared of the unknown. The lights hurt her eyes. The heat burned her skin. She didn’t know these people. They didn’t share the same blood. She was a stranger in a foreign land. An orphan of uncertainty. 

Mom was not happy. There was no cord for dad to cut. There was sadness and disappointment at her arrival. She was an unfamiliar face. A warm body present with an absent surname. A man made creation of unknown origin.

Mom immediately detached from “Baby Grace”. She saw no resemblance of her in those little brown eyes. She grew terribly depressed with what doctors described as, “Postpartum Blues.” 

Dad would be responsible for working all day and staying up late nights with Baby Grace. He knew she wasn’t biologically his per say, but he loved her unconditionally. Mom had checked out emotionally, so he became a single parent in a broken home. A catastrophe created by his own hands.

Baby Grace was an unethical, seed planted in human error. She inherited tremendous suffering at the will of good intentions gone astray. She was predestined for misery and misfortune, but God had a different plan.

{To be continued}