MOM’S HAIL MARY PASS

My mother had schizophrenia. She’s dead now and I prefer to believe that ailment was left behind her when her spirit moved on. Her pain and her hope, however, remain here in me, hovering side by side, an uneasy alliance, or a multiple personality disorder. Or bipolor disorder, which is what I am told I have.
My relationship with God began the moment I shot forth from my mother’s womb. She grabbed my slippery body in her leathered hands and punted me toward Heaven where I landed with a cry at God’s feet. That is how my relationship with God began. My mother threw me at Him.
God looked down upon me and jerked His head toward His brick wall defenders. A husky one folded his wings, walked over, picked me up and threw me back at my mother where I landed with a plop upon her flaccid belly. Her eyes popped open in shock and a look of indignation swept over her exhausted face.
“What is this?” she demanded, her eyes angry slits. “What is the meaning of this?”
His voice raised the downy hairs of my still wet body and an awesome chill came over me. “Put her back,” He said. “This one’s not done.”
Despite this, I felt His presence my whole life, an unseen force hanging over me, observing me and the events that made up my life. His presence did not always feel peaceful. He sometimes felt angry, a storm of rain and hail and lightening flashing, crashing, lighting fires I could not put out. He sometimes felt immensely saddened, a sorrow so deep, my own heart felt broken. Given the powerful nature of these emotions, I did not always appreciate His presence. In truth, I outright resented it sometimes. After all, I was a returned product – the Hail Mary pass my mother had attempted had failed. Miserably. Of course I was resentful.
But I ignored this resentment and tried to make my peace with the Man upstairs over and over again.

DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL
Back to the Beginning – Three Years after My Mother’s Hail Mary Pass

I shivered as I huddled on the cold tile bathroom floor next to where Daddy had fallen. He had been shaving, as he did every morning, and I had been watching, as I did every morning. But our ritual had ended there for Daddy had crumpled forward over the sink and then slid down to the floor. I had laughed and giggled, at first, tickled by his antics, delighted by them really, but then I had climbed down from my spot on the counter to sit beside him. Now I sat next to his head, gazing into his face, gently rubbing my fingers through his hair, and dipping down occasionally to kiss him while carefully avoiding the white foam that still covered half of his face. From time to time, I murmured, “Shave. Daddy, get up. Shave, Daddy,” but rather than rise and grab me in his arms singing and shouting “All the way, all the time, Daddy’s little girl,” he lay hushed and unmoving.
I continued to rub my fingers through his hair. It was so soft, so shiny, and so short and dark, unlike my own long blonde hair, but, still, it felt good in my three year old fingers. I liked it, Daddy’s hair.
I moved one hand to the shaved side of his face. This, too, was soft, smooth, but the opposing side, the side with the foam, disturbed me. I gazed at him, touching his straight, proud nose, his closed eyes with his long lashes, and his wide mouth which was always upturned in a smile me. Except for now. Now his mouth was slack, still, and although I saw the glint of a few teeth, it was not the same as his smile. The foam troubled me a great deal and I reached down and touched it, feeling the stubble beneath it even as its sharp scent wafted up my nose.