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Upon Their Hands They Will Carry you
Page 10


What Ethics for This?

Strings of wet hair hung down my neck and back. Rhonda's diaper bag I dropped right inside the door of this small, but comfortable space we called our own. What a welcome site the small living room was and softened the misery of my body as I shivered from the cold of the rain.

My lavender paisley dress only this morning fresh and clean was now in a soggy heap on the floor as I stepped out of it. After rubbing my hair vigorously with a towel, I took it and made a wrap for my head.

My mind was over loaded with the sites and sorrows endured that day. Who knew there were children shut away from the world like this simply because they were less than perfect? What sort of a civilization could treat them in such an Oliver Twist manner? The eyes and little hands of those who were in their beds reached out to touch me as if my presence was something rare and special and that haunted me as surely as any ghost who is brazen enough to slide in and out of nightmares.

"Are you my Mommy?" One of children asked and I knew the memory of that question was to stay with me for a lifetime. Then, there was the therapy to make a child cry out in pain.

He surely suffered this many times and almost learned to endure. Sweet baby faces under helmets, standing in stiff legged steel braces made an imprint upon my mind like a hot branding iron hitting the rump of a young calf. Animals cried out in a greater way than these children.

Suddenly, I became aware Rod's aunt was not the pillar of trust I had at first imagined her to be. I knew now there was an element of power here to be faced. If Auntie Pud was the driving force behind these decisions to be made, then, certainly, it was in agreement with what her brother, Rod's Dad and Mother, no doubt, discussed with her. From this time on there was to be only a moment to moment, situation; where upon these decisions would have to be made. I was young, but there was still the love and respect I had for my Uncle Dennis, Mother and Dad.

"A call home will be necessary," I thought to myself. "Uncle Dennis will know what to do."

This was a new world of shadowy shades of black and white as far as having to cope with what was now happening in my life. I knew what my commitment was all about as far as the ethics for going into marriage, divorce, faith, loyalty and all those things. This was another issue and for sure, there seemed to be a well entrenched, established method of dealing with the disabled. What was right? What was the thing that would please my Creator? There was all too much, just too much to think through.

You will need to see after Rhonda? Please? My love? I'm past going and can't seem to stay awake any longer. Just let me snuggle down here in this warm bed for a while?" It was more than a while, though, because there was darkness outside when I awoke.

"I can't believe you let me sleep all this time. Is this proof there is really rest for the weary? How does that saying go? There is no rest for the wicked? Anyway, thank you, Sweetheart, for letting me sleep."

"You needed the rest and we did all right, Rhonda and I." Rodney was his usual noncommittal, self.

"If you don't mind watching her a bit longer, I'll get a quick shower?"

Now, for the first time, I learned that if the shower was turned full into my face there could be silent weeping with no one hearing or being disturbed by my grief.


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