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In Our Own Words
Living With Literature/Writing Our Stories
SELECTION ONE
In response to “The Man Who Found You in the Woods,” by Catherine Ryan Hyde
It has been 42 months since I have laid eyes on my children and while I have been away dreaming about my life with them, praying to be set free, and now that day has come.
In under six hours I will be released from this prison of brick and mortar. I sit here again in my little grey brick cell, laying in my bunk watching infomercials at 3 a.m. while smoking buglars (hand-rolled cigarettes).
I watch the seconds turn to minutes and the minutes turn to hours while I play back the tapes of my life, when all of a sudden a fear sets in that my children will leave me as harshly as I have left them so many times in the past. I have had no real life experiences with them.
Hell, they learned to walk and talk while I was on the phone with them.
Well, there it is. They just called me to pack up. I am finally outa here. My prayers have been answered and now my fantasy turns to fear. Will they love me or reject me for who and what I am? I am now in Receiving, waiting to be signed out and can see their big faces out of the thick glass windows.
Well, the moment of truth has arrived. I am leaving this place. I really hope this place leaves me. I walk through the gate full of fear and anxiety of what I don’t know and I walk into the arms of my son and daughters, whose first reaction is a hug and a kiss, and whose first words were in unison, “Daddy, can we have ice cream for breakfast?”
by JW