Resiliency

A story:

 

The rain beat down on the motel parking lot, while street lamps above provided refuge from the inky darkness that had descended with the storm. My sixteen year old self stood, hugging my body against the chill, wishing for nothing more than to be swept away into oblivion. Fighting within, I longed for the quiet and peace of nonexistence, while a force inside urged me to fighting and breathe against the drowning sensation.

 

It was the night that would mark the end of six-month months of homelessness: of living on couches, in dark mountain cabins and the occasional dive motels. For those aching months I had lived with my possessions in a pillow case tucked under the seat of a van. Many days my sister and I tried to comfort our three younger brothers in the chaos that our lives had become, while we eyed our mother in the driver's seat, steering our lives further into oblivion.

 

She had left our father, and found many backs turned and many doors in her faith community shut to her as a result. It's a story that I still have not had the strength to write about in full. It has left deep scars. But during that time, even though our mother knew that the journey was breaking us, she spoke of the resiliency of the human spirit.

 

That word became a beacon for me. More than any god, or religion, that was what I began to invest my faith in: we were resilient.

 

Read more on my blog:

 

www.jenkiabaphotography.com/blog/2015/5/resiliency

 

 

Done