Chicken Soup for Every Mom's Soul Read Free Page B

yes, I know. But secretly my gut clenched. I wavered between self-disgust and self-pity. What arrogance had me thinking that my house, my family, my love, could reach this broken little girl? If, in the end, she could not love me back, but she was safe and content, surrounded by health and hope, shouldn’t that be enough? Perhaps there would be no sacred bond or whispered trust between us. But if she could live without pain and in relative peace, shouldn’t I just be thankful, and let the rest go?
    One night, about a year after Samantha arrived, I was awakened by a choked cry. I hurried in and found Samantha sitting up in bed, her white nightgown a mess. She had gotten sick all over herself and her bed linens. Cleaning up throw-up was my domain, so my husband helped Samantha to the bathroom as I began to strip her sheets. I could hear Dan speaking quietly to Sam as he knelt with her in front of the toilet bowl. I was filling up a bucket when suddenly she let out an anguished cry. Her words were loud and distinct, “I WANT MY MOMMY!”
    She was hurting and needing help, scared and needing comfort. She was a child who needed her mom. And not her biological mom, or her foster moms, or the social workers. She wanted me ! What kind of a mother rejoices when her daughter is sick and in distress? I couldn’t help it—my heart sang.
    I cradled my daughter’s head while her little body heaved. It wasn’t pretty, but it was real. I knew then that although I wouldn’t be Samantha’s first mom . . . or her second or third, nothing could keep me from being her last. And that was more than enough.
    Jenny Graham
    [EDITORS’ NOTE: Today, Sam is a healthy, happy teenager who loves music, horseback riding and her family. ]

Words to Love By
    God has sent the family—together as husband and wife and children—to be his love.
    I once picked up a child of six or seven in the street and took her to Shishu Bhavin (a children’s home) and gave her a bath, some clothes and some nice food. That evening the child ran away.
    We took the child a second and a third time, and she ran away.
    After the third time I sent a sister to follow her. The sister found the child sitting with her mother and sister under a tree. There was a little dish there and the mother was cooking food she had picked up from the streets.
    They were cooling there.
    They were eating there.
    They were sleeping there.
    It was their home.
    And then we understood why the child ran away. The mother just loved that child. And the child loved the mother. They were so beautiful to each other.
    The child said “bari jabo”—it was her home.
    Her mother was her home.
    Mother Teresa

Princess
    The dress hides far in the back of the closet, behind years of accumulated plastic-sheathed memories. Carefully, I pull it from the dark recesses, past layers of archived prom dresses, granny gowns and jean jackets that mark a fabric trail of my increasingly distant and often troubled youth. As the dress faces the morning light for the first time in many years, tiny sparkles wink at me through the dusty garment bag hiding its loveliness. Removing it from its transparent covering and holding it to my cheek, I smell its fragrance and the musty perfume of the past.
    My mother bought the dress more than forty years ago for a cocktail party at the general’s house. As the wife of an army captain, she experienced alternating pangs of excitement and worry at the extravagant purchase. The dress hung for many days, weighed down by assorted tags, while she fought a silent battle with herself. The precarious balance between womanly desire and financial practicality shifted in favor of one position, then the other.
    Self-absorbed like most ten-year-olds, I didn’t understand my mother’s budget dilemma. I knew only that something black and wonderful had entered her closet and hung in solitary splendor amidst the flowered housecoats and practical day dresses.
    I don’t think she actually decided to