Honoring mothers and motherhood
Why We Celebrate Today
Every mother is different
https://books2read.com/Bittersweet-Memories-by-Erika-M-Szabo
Not every mother is a happy housewife giving her children a warm home, security, and love.
In this story, a mother is helplessly lost to addiction but tries to ensure a better life for her newborn daughter. Did she save her precious little girl? Yes, she saved her from a miserable life of an addict. However, life had sad and happy days stored for her.
Moving from one foster home to another, her life was a
revolving door of shattered hopes and disappointments.
As soon as she felt an emotional connection to anyone, the
foster kid in her quickly pushed the feeling away. The last thing Elana wanted
to do was to get close to someone she would probably never see again. The
necessary emotional defense served her well throughout her unpredictable life.
Until she met Luca.
On that stormy Christmas Eve twenty-two years ago, a young
woman trudged through the unforgivingly cold winds of downtown New York City
with a bundle of rags held tightly to her chest. Glass beads of frozen tears
clung to the exposed skin of her face. The woman, slightly dazed and clearly
distraught, shuffled aimlessly through the snow that clotted the empty
sidewalk.
She was uncertain how long she had been pushing her way
through the whirling snow, but her raw cheeks were evidence of the stretch of
time and the ferocity of the wind. To anyone driving by, she appeared to be
just another homeless person: one of the city’s many untouchables caught in the
fierce weather, trying to find shelter. They’d give her a callous look and go
about their business.
The woman, guided by her numb feet, walked and walked until
the dim light of a steeple shone through the flittering blankets of falling
snowflakes. Slowly, she approached the steps leading up to the door and
stopped.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, lightly rocking the bundle of
rags from side to side. “I’m alone, and I have nowhere to go. You’ll be better
off without me.” Her soft crying was captured in the air as tufts of tiny ice
beads—dissipating clouds of unfathomable despair. They would momentarily hover
about her face like a thin mask before being swallowed up by the passing gusts
of wind from the barren street.
Slowly, she knelt and set the bundle of rags carefully onto
the cathedral step. With warm tears running cold as soon as they leaked down
her trembling cheeks, she traced her footsteps back down the street and
disappeared into the storm. Never to return.
A few minutes later, a priest of the church stepped out onto
the front steps. “Good Lord! It’s cold tonight,” Father Brown, a tall, middle
aged man murmured while tossing his long scarf over his shoulder. He shoved his
boney hands into the pockets of his long coat and took a moment to silently
view the whitewashed buildings with awe. They stood like monolithic snowdrifts,
rows of naked windows gleaming with ice, like the eyes of a frozen spider.
Father Brown was on his way to a homeless shelter across
town to help with the preparation of Christmas Day dinner. Having no family of
his own, it brought him more joy to be surrounded by those in need than to be
cooped up in the church all night watching old movies on the ancient black and
white TV set in his bedroom. Though he rather enjoyed Jimmy Stewart’s
performance in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, he’d seen the
movie at least fifty times by now, and serving the unfortunate souls would be a
better use of his time. The smiles on their faces, as warm and inviting as the
turkey and mashed potatoes he was lucky enough to serve, was more than he ever could
have asked for on this holiest of days. Pulling his hand out of his jacket to
check his wristwatch, he realized that if he wanted to catch the late bus to
the shelter, he’d have to get a move on.
Hurrying down the church steps, he nearly stumbled. He
looked down and saw the bundle of rags resting on the bottom step. At first
thought to be trash, the priest sidestepped to walk around the heap of clothing
when, suddenly, he heard a weak moan emanating from the bundle of rags, muffled
by the layers. Curiously kneeling to get a better look, he nearly screamed when
the rags began to shiver and move at his touch.
That’s when he realized something living was wrapped up
inside. Fearing the worst, he quickly scooped up the bundle and brought it into
the protective walls of the cathedral. Clutching the rag bundle to his chest,
he made his way to the nearest pew and slowly set it down, whispering a prayer.
Under the glow of various lit candles and assisted by the borrowed white light
of the full moon leaking through the stained windows, the priest quickly undid
the bundle of cloths.
Lying inside the cocoon of dirty rags was a newborn baby.
Still pruned, with dried blood covering her skin and matted hair, her blue eyes
rolled listlessly, and dry lips slightly parted to expose purple gums and a
swollen tongue.
“Sweet Mother Mary!” Father Brown gasped, reflexively
tracing the holy symbol of the cross on his body as he raced his way back to
his office. Once inside, his shaking hands grasped the phone on his desk and
dialed 9-1-1.
“Yes, I need an ambulance sent to St. Patrick’s Cathedral
immediately,” the priest begged, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead.
“I have a dying newborn here. Please, hurry!” Abruptly ending the call, he
raced back out to the pew and held the baby in his arms. It hurt his soul to
look at the child, shriveled and clinging to life, but he forced his eyes to
meet hers.
“Don’t worry, little one,” he said, cradling the dying baby
tightly in his arms to keep her warm. “God is watching over you now.”
The ambulance arrived at the church not ten minutes later,
and the newborn was immediately rushed to a local hospital. The baby was at the
brink of death. She was severely dehydrated, and hypothermia had set in, making
her breathing shallow and heartbeat slow.
Unable to trace the parents or relatives of the baby, the
hospital contacted child services and arranged for the little girl to be placed
in foster care, once she was in better health.
Under the watchful care of doctors and nurses, after
fighting a series of infections and neonatal abstinence syndrome because of the
drugs she was exposed to in the womb, she slowly recovered. The nurses adored
the tiny baby and held her in their arms, cooing to her as much as their busy
schedule allowed. By the hospital rules her name was Baby Girl, but the nurses
named her Elana.
She was cleared by the hospital a little more than three months later and was assigned a social worker and given an official name: Elana Smith.
