I am ten-years old and
our church is having a revival. I am in fifth grade. We watch videos of dead
babies in the streets and people disappearing mid-walk with a friend. The song
from the video is “You’ve been left behind.”
I get home from school
and the house is empty. Logically, I know that my mother is at work, but all I
can think about is that song. And I know that I have been left behind. That all the good people were taken, my mother along with them, and I did not make the cut.
My mother comes home
and plops her purse down on the table. “Hey kiddo, good day?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, my
heart beating a million miles a minute. “Hey ma?”
“Yes?”
“What if I don’t believe in God or any of that stuff they teach at church?” I ask her fearing for my life.
“What if I don’t believe in God or any of that stuff they teach at church?” I ask her fearing for my life.
“Baby,” she says
calmly, “you just gotta fake it till ya make it. That’s what you do in this
life.”
And I did it well.
Until, I didn’t.
