Читать книгу Journey of a Cotton Blossom - Jennifer Crocker-Villegas - Страница 8

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The Chains of Sunday

One early Sunday morning, the day of God, in a small southern town known as Clarksville, Mississippi, a beautiful baby boy was born. Most the people of the town were at church. They were praising God, as all good, God-fearing Christians do.

This baby boy cracked open his beautiful, bright eyes for the first time while his mama held his warm, tiny body, full of energy and life. He was God’s gift to the world that day. She cradled his head with one warm hand while staring deeply into his soulful eyes and realized she never could have imagined a love this overpowering.

His sweet baby smell and his spirit were intense and special. His mother possessed an inexplicable knowledge that he had been put on this earth to be a great presence among humankind. She knew he deserved a strong name. Joseph it will be, she thought to herself. It was as if God had leaned down and whispered the name directly into her ear: “Joseph.”

Like any mother, she wanted the very best for her first child. She was just a young girl searching for guidance; nevertheless, she felt the deep love for her child that consumes a mother.

With church letting out in town, the young mother knew that everyone would soon be meeting her freshly born baby boy. She was not ready to share her gift from God, but she knew she would have no choice. There was tension in the air, thick and almost tangible, as the people returned from church.

The mother’s immense love turned to intense fear for her newborn baby boy. She was afraid that he would be stripped from her arms like she had been from her own mother years before. Her first instinct was to take little Joseph and run before the “owners” returned from having given “praise” to God. Even though she was weak from giving birth alone, she had that motherly drive to grab her boy and run. For a brief moment she had a fantasy of teaching Joseph to walk and talk and then watching him grow into a wonderful man. Then she snapped out of it. She knew she needed to get away before it was too late. That raw, motherly drive inside of her was screaming, Run, run! while trying to claw its way out to save the infant.

As the motherly instinct broke free, she covered herself and grabbed Joseph tightly, preparing for escape and the salvation of their lives. She leaped from the bed in which she had given birth, slinging placenta to the floor. As she took her first step with a huge jolt of momentum, she felt a taut jerk and fell to the ground face-first, protecting Joseph’s tiny head from the blow with her own childlike hand. She was abruptly reminded that she was chained to the bed like a disregarded work animal. There was no saving little Joseph, her only love, from what was sure to come.