Page 72 - Reason To Sing by Kelita Haverland

Reason To Sing

Chapter Eleven

And Now This

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a bad dream. The burning,
stabbing pain may have subsided a little bit, but the guilt and
shame have blown up like a bomb. Often I feel angry. And then
I feel even more guilty for feeling angry.
It’s hard to know what to do with all these crazy thoughts
and feelings so mostly I just bury them. Nobody else talks about
any of it. They just keep smiling and acting like everything is
okay so I just keep smiling and acting like I am too. I pretend
that life is going to be normal again. I so desperately want to
believe that my family is like any other family.
But our life is not back to normal, and our family will never
be like any other family. The unexpected and unbelievable stuff
just keeps piling up, like a mountain of pain. I always seem to
know when something is wrong even before I know what it is.
So here I am, outside my mother’s office, once again playing
detective.
I can hear her voice behind the closed door. I can tell it’s
serious by her quiet tone. My ears perk up, trying to catch every
syllable.
“I’ve been convinced for ages there’s something going on
but every time I saw Dr. Boyd, he didn’t think it was anything
serious,” my mother laments. “But I just knew it!” She pauses to
catch her breath. She sounds distraught, on the verge of tears.
“Now it’s very serious and I have to have surgery just as soon as
they can get me in. Dr. Boyd says he’s going to fast-track me.”
I realize she is speaking with my aunt Lucille. I hang onto

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