Waiting for Her Wings

Waiting for Her Wings

Welcome to Christianity Oasis. This is Waiting for Her Wings from our Sojourn With Luz Leigh Collection. We hope you enjoy this enlightening reading and it helps you on your own be-YOU-tiful Christian walk.

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Sojourn With Luz Leigh

Waiting for Her Wings

Written by Luz Leigh - 15 January 2009

This story might bring a tear or two, but hang in there ... just as the Psalms tell us, "Joy comes in the morning" ... so will you find joy in this. As I was listening to the local radio station today, for the second day in a row I heard Brooke Adams play the song in which the female artist is singing about her two little brothers waiting for their angel wings. They knew they would not grow old. So it was with my relationship with my young mother. From the earliest memories I have, I knew Mother would not live to see me as a grown young lady. It was just a given fact; sometime she had instilled in me. Naturally as a child I didn't want to believe it, but if Mother was telling it as fact, and Daddy was agreeing with her, I knew it must be true. My parents did not lie.

Mother talked to me about how life without her would be; how I would depend on Daddy for all the things she had been there for. Knowing how difficult it would be for a male to explain about the "birds and the bees" as it was referred to back on those days, Mother sat me down one day and in her gentlest voice and demeanor, explained about love and sex between a man and a woman; about the changes that would take place within my body; she didn't use the word "hormones" but she made me understand that what I would feel and experience were normal. Of course, in my mind I was thinking ... "How gross!" Mother was right; changes came, but I was prepared for them.

She also gave me many happy memories to tide me over when the sadness came upon me; on days when I would walk into her room and she would not be there. She had cautioned me not to dwell on the loneliness but to remember happy moments. It was at those times I would turn my attention to my chores, to my homework or just being a little girl.

Some of you have heard of this incident before, so please indulge me. Mother and I were sitting on our front porch, enjoying the afternoon sun. Suddenly a car came speeding up the dirt street that ran in front of our house. As the car approached the intersection by our house, it slowed just a bit, but even that did not keep the car from sliding and sending dust flying. Mother, with a little frown on her face, turned to me and said words that I never forget. "Sara, there are two boys in this town that you are NEVER to get in the car with." The next words from her mouth were the name of the man I would fall in love with, marry and with whom I would rear a family, and the name of his best friend. I nodded in agreement because as an eleven-year-old girl I didn't even like either of those boys. After all, they were about seventeen years old and "wild" by my daddy's standards.

Mother loved to dance, but dancing was against my daddy's religious beliefs so when they married, Mother put her dancing shoes away. But that urge to glide across the floor with partner never completely left her, so she and her sisters would listen to the radio and dance with each other in our living room when Daddy was not at home. They were just young women having a good time, but Mother was not sure Daddy would look at it in the same manner, so they had to be sure their little dancing parties were not discovered. That meant they needed a watchman ... rather a watch girl ... so I would sit on the porch steps and keep a sharp eye out for Daddy's truck as he made his way home from work. When I saw his truck, I would run inside and sound the alarm, "Daddy's home." I laugh now as I remember those frantic moments of their getting the living room furniture back in place, the volume of the radio turned down to a quiet level and my meeting Daddy at the gate, trying to delay his entrance into the house. Because of Daddy's objection to dancing, Mother would never teach me to dance ... all I could do was sit there and pat my little feet to the beat of the music.

Daddy purchased a small pressure cooker for use in preparing meals. The first afternoon he used it, Mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table watching as he prepared supper. (By this time, Mother was no longer physically able to do the cooking or other household chores, but she would sit in the kitchen sometimes and visit with Daddy as he cooked our meals.) Daddy didn't think to warn us that at some point the cooker would allow some steam to escape through the little spout on the top. When the hissing began, it frightened Mother who promptly grabbed my arm and screamed, "Run, Sara, run," all the while pushing me toward the back door. It had been a very long time since I had seen Mother move so quickly. Daddy was calling out to us to stop, but we paid no heed. He came out in the yard and explained to Mother and me that the release of the steam was a safety measure. At which time Mother began to laugh that beautiful laugh of hers, saying, "Felix, I thought we were about to die. I thought that thing was going to blow up our house." Daddy asked her why she only yelled for me to run and not him, still laughing she told him he was the one that had brought that devilish pressure cooker into the house and surely, as a grown man, he would have sense enough to get out of its way. Daddy did not laugh a lot, but at that, he, too, began to chuckle.

Sometimes when my parents and I would be fishing in a nearby creek, Mother would decide the fish were not biting as often as she liked, so she would suggest that she and I play in the water instead. She would remove her shoes, pull her dress up above her knees, and while holding it with one hand, she would proceed to splash water on me with the other hand. I could splash her as well. A few years ago my younger son took me to the spot on the creek where we once fished and played. It looks different, but the memories of Mother and me playing in the water came tumbling back. I could almost hear her voice, laughing as we played like two children. It was a good visit.

See, I told you there would be joy if you hung around long enough.

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