09.01.08
Forgotten not Forsaken
I remember the first time it happened. It was my birthday and the first telephone call of the day wasn’t from my parents. Though the latter part of August was the end of summer the hot afternoon sun baked the landscape and my own heart was beginning to thirst and still no call. I pacified myself assuming they were out for the day and would call that evening. The late-night news echoed and the telephone remained silent. Feeling a bit perplexed with a hint of abandonment I thought, tomorrow they will call: they always call on my birthday. Tomorrow came and went and they did not call.
On the 26th of the month, bright and early the telephone rang. I answered and voices in unison shouted, “Happy Birthday!”
“Thank you but my birthday was two days ago.”
“I told you, Fred.”
“I thought it was the 26th.”
“No, that’s Katrinka’s birthday” I replied, resolved that I must now accept the same oversight I had endured growing up being called by the wrong name as one of them called out the list of siblings before stumbling onto my name.
The next time it happened, no call on my birthday I knew it was only a matter of waiting: two days to be exact. Years have passed and Daddy has gone on to heaven. Mother doesn’t remember my birthday. Sadly, she doesn’t remember the person that I am. In her dementia she thinks I am out to get her money, her freedom: the last two things an aging person can try to hold on to. And what do I hold onto in my sorrow of abandonment?
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15-16).
