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"I'm Here"




I’m Here

As my mother and I walked home from church. The rain pouring on that raw, November day in 1973. She, feeling low as I was age eleven. We stopped on the dirt road that led away from the church and in the direction of our new home. My parent’s first owned home, in their now sixteen year marriage. She paused as the near warmth of our home lay waiting.

We held our umbrella together. She began to fret over what she realized she could not and had not been able to control in life. We then stood still, as the rain sunk deeply into the puddles of the muddy road our feet stood upon. A look of desperation was held in the grips of her sad lonely face. A woman of beauty torn by things she could not control. Yet, felt responsible to do so for me. Mom conveyed she was alone in her life’s journey, and that it was a torture of the unknown.

I responded, “I’m here…”

Mom replied, “I should have named you ‘Hope’…”

I think about that day in the rain most often. And I know that ‘Hope’ has become my middle name post-partumously. ---Jody-Lynn Reicher
https://www.amazon.com/Jody-Lynn-Reicher/e/B00R3VUZ18/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_10?qid=1418802234&sr=1-10

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