The Wall
This woman sat in her chair for fifteen minutes; but in reality, she was waiting for eighteen years to see her livelihood.  She lived for it without getting a peak, or even a sign that it was still there.  She waited so very long to see it.
 Was it her shaking hands, her wide-open blue eyes, or her ability to read a magazine in less than two minutes the noticeable consequence of her waiting?  She had a satisfied look on her face despite the fact that she had to squint to read the fine print.  That was a definite sign that she wasn't impatient for something that called for eighteen years of waiting.
 Finally, a man in white uniform opens the door to the room in which the woman was sitting.  The man couldn't have been a nurse; it looked like he lifted weights all day.  He allowed the already frail middle-aged woman to lean on his bulky arm.  She whispered softly to the young nurse,  "My son is probably about your age."
 The long white hall out of the waiting room was a reminder of Heaven.  A large luminescent light on the end of that long corridor brought each step closer to blindness. To the woman, each step brought an extra beat to her heart that kept her living for the moment ahead.
 The woman had to squint again as she entered the pure white room.  The gleam of glass against the light took up the entire area.  The small section left was where a chair could be put down for the woman.  She stayed standing, though, trying to do the pacing she did when she was younger.
 The silent waiting brought memories for the woman.  She heard the voices of her parents.  The voice that seemed to overpower her mind was a doctor though.
 A small creak was emitted from the door behind the glass wall. The woman jumped out of anxiety and of fear of what she would see.  The young man coming from the other side of the glass was almost literally an angel.  His blonde hair and his mother's blue eyes were beautiful.
 He looked at the woman on the other side of the glass with some curiosity.  The male nurse yelled from the woman's side of the wall, "This is your mother!"  The boy was stunned at this declaration and after several seconds in a frozen state, he placed the hand the sun never touched on the glass.  His shorter mother took her quivering hand and placed it on the exact spot opposite her son's.
 The memories came flashing back. She was eighteen years old when she had given up her baby boy.  The doctors she saw all claimed that they didn’t know the disease she had, but it would make her age dramatically.  And her son, who had to be taken away to be tested and protected, would age the exact same way his mother had.  Gradually, after the departure of the baby she named Michael, she became older looking. Although the doctors said it was her disease, she knew, and her whole family knew, that it was the lack of her only son.
 The woman sniffled even though she was beyond tears.  At thirty-six, she could barely walk.  Her movements were slow and dull. Yet she could still say to her son at that moment with a shaky voice, "Michael, I've always wanted a little Michael. I love you, even if your heart doesn't have a place for your mother who never got to watch you grow."
 The boy was crying too. He was speechless. Already, he had noticeable gray hair. He didn't want to walk away from his mother, but the sight of his inevitable future was unbearable. He started for the door slowly, not saying a word to his sobbing mother.
 The mother was choking on tears for minutes as her son made his way out of the room…and out of her life.  Sad as it was to see her only son, who never went on a date, and never would go on a date, she was still filled with joy.  Her only wish since her teen years was fulfilled, and she could die in peace.
 A week later, the young Michael received a letter in the mail.  He opened it slowly with his weak joints.  He read with a squint, just as his mother did. The letter was from the hospital where his mother was staying.  She had died in her sleep two days after seeing Michael.  Even though he had deep remorse for not saying anything to his dying mother, he still felt a small satisfaction in his heart. He found out that day he was just like his mother in every way, down to their hair and eyes. And he would be able to see his mother, and even talk to her in Heaven, without a glass wall separating them.  Back to Index