My Anchor to God: A Poem

Their stepmother had warned them to check the license plates before they got in.

It was half right

and perhaps it’s because us females learn to rebel against the ingrained teaching to be scared

or perhaps it’s because memory is a fickle thing,

especially paired against the strong impulse of a moment,

or perhaps it’s simply because her sister is already getting in the taxi, and she can’t let her go alone

but then regret wins out

as the two tour guides discuss her price tag with the men in the boat

and her sister starts yelling

but she just stands back and prays.

Prays until the hotel manager comes

“Girls, get in the car.

Don’t get into a car unless I call it for you.”

And they were saved.

They both came from big houses with 5 or 6 children growing and going

and she had always wanted to be a mother

and perhaps it’s because she was getting older

or perhaps the stork was called away on other business,

but the doctors gave up on her

and she just prayed.

Prayed until a family member had to tell her she was pregnant,

because she had stopped expecting to be expecting

and when she was done eating big macs and he popped out a month early,

she called him her blessing.

Once blessed, she’s not the type to expect more.

She didn’t try for another child.

But 11 months later, she was craving peanut M&Ms,

and she called me her gift.

She expected to raise us as a single mother

because our father had fallen from a ladder onto concrete,

and the doctors said he would never be the same.

The brain damage made him a shell, spaced out

and perhaps it’s because she said “in sickness and in health”

with too much muster to be defied by a TBI

or perhaps it’s because she trusted in him 

more than she valued her knowledge of psychology,

but she never left him.

Three years later, the irreversible was reversed to a point where I will never trust 

a doctor’s definitive again.

She never thinks of her life as extraordinary.

Once blessed, ever blessed.

She never questioned her devotion or thought it miraculous,

and her C-section scars are the only parts of her body she cherishes.

And she told me my relationship with God should come first

but how, when I had so many questions

and my skepticism could overrule my faith 

and He never seemed to talk to me or I couldn’t hear Him

and His world seems bereft of love

but I saw my mother’s love every day, right in front of me.

It took me years to realize it’s one and the same.

For God so loved my momma, He gave her trials and tribulations

And because He looked down and saw she was good,

I was saved.