Worth Waiting For

The clock chimed as another hour slipped away. 

She studied the clock. It was nothing but wood, glass, and mechanical pieces, with 12 metal numbers on the face. Three hands, one to measure the hours, one to measure the minutes and one to measure the seconds.

A lifeless object that took up space on the wall. The clock did not place itself, she put it there. She was responsible for its actions. It did not put itself into motion, she did that by placing a battery inside. It didn’t even know the correct time. She had to set it before it could begin marking the passage of time. The purpose of the clock? To measure time, which it did, second by second, in two beats – tick – tock.

She waited, watching as time passed, one second after another, seconds turning into minutes. When those minutes turned into an hour, she told herself she could simply reach up, take the clock from the wall and remove the battery. Time would stop. At least as far as that clock was concerned. Time would not standstill. The waiting would not stop, it would continue. For such an insignificant object, that clock held so much. Time, whether you wanted it to or not, lingered forever. Time would be her biggest fear or her strongest ally.

The clock had replaced the pictures. Even though they were now stored away, she could still see the images in her mind’s eye. The physical reminders had become more than she could bear. Images in pictures do not change. No matter how much time has passed, no matter how long you wait, the images remain the same even though you know – YOU KNOW – with absolute certainty, the subjects in those pictures are no longer the same as they were when they were frozen in time. Structures will decay, the scenery will change, and people – people change, they grow up, they grow older, they grow distant.

She looked at herself in the mirror. The mirror still sitting on the floor because she refused to hang it up. Mirrors are reflections of here and now, not of what once was. She couldn’t look at the past and there was nothing in the present.

She sat and studied the reflection as her reflection studied her. She had lost weight, a lot of weight. That should be positive. But today she only saw the wrinkles, the lines, her hair, now more silver than brown – she’s older. Sadness envelopes her as she sits looking at herself in the mirror. Her image looking back at her and what did she see? Proof that people grow older.

The mirror was meant to replace the pictures. The absence of the pictures was a powerful, yet silent, reminder that people in pictures grow older. You can try to imagine what someone looks like as they age, but it’s never the same as seeing it, watching it happen. You aren’t able to witness the subtle changes that happen throughout the years.

Which is worse? Photographs, those visual reminders of people and places that never age or a clock that ticks off the time, second by second as an audible reminder of how quickly time is passing? Both are reminders of how long she has been waiting.

The first week, the first month, the first year was difficult. She barely remembered when the first year became the second when two became three…time continued to pass, time eventually melded together into one giant black hole until she could no longer remember exactly how much time had passed.

Pulling the drawer out slowly, she hesitated, was the effort worth the emotional turmoil? How long was too long? At what point do you give up the wait, and resign to the fact, that what once was, is no longer, and never will be again? But wait! Never to be again? If that were true, then all of her waiting had been for naught. This inner battle seemed to rage more frequently inside of her.

Wait. There was that word – again. WAIT. Waiting implied something would eventually happen. What if that were not the case? What if she continued to wait, time continued to march on and – nothing! All the waiting, hoping, and praying would have been for nothing.

She endured the waiting in silence, not sharing this heartbreak with anyone. She had been called pathetic for waiting. So, she simply carried her burden silently. Perhaps now was the time to give up. Just simply – stop. Stop trying, stop hoping, and stop waiting. What would it matter? Yet to stop waiting meant to stop caring and her heart simply wouldn’t allow it.

She glanced at the calendar, another birthday. Another year gone and still…nothing. She looked at the list of birthdays. How many years had gone by? And still, the clock ticked on. The clock, counting time slowly while the calendar counted time in big chunks.

The heavy sigh escaped her lips without notice. The tears began to fall. She had long since stopped trying to prevent the tears. It was best to just let them fall. So she let them flow freely. She watched as her reflection cried with her. Company, even your own, was better than always feeling alone.

Reaching in the drawer once more, she pulled out the journals. Stopping, no matter how devastating the effort to continue, was not an option. The love in her heart urged her on, as her mind screamed – why? The inner battle raged on.

She wrote of her day, the things she had done and seen. She wrote of her love and how she missed those absent from her life. She wrote of how she thought of them every day.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t understand. Addiction had become her silent enemy. Though it seemed to have swept in gently like a tide, it took over, causing chaos, destruction, and despair, and then would ebb out just enough to bring false hope that the worst was over, only to return with a vengeance and start the cycle all over. The devastation left behind was so great. Addiction was like an octopus with tentacles stretching out a net that snared everything in its path.

She didn’t understand the concept of addiction. To provide an escape from reality, a way to forget the present, perhaps money? But at what price did such things come?

She thought addiction to be a study in temporary, which ultimately led to waiting.

A temporary high, then wait – while the substance of choice blocked out the anxiety or urgency, or stress of the moment.

Wait – until the effects wore off and only more anxiety and stress were left. Because the effects never lasted.

  Wait – to see if and when more could be obtained.

Wait – to see what the justice system threw at you. Wait – sitting locked away with nothing to do but wait as time passed.

Second by second, with each tick of the clock.

Reflecting on all she had seen, heard, knew, and endured, it took so much more than it gave. Her enemy, addiction, forced her into this time of life. Addiction robbed her of so many things, overtook so many aspects of her life.

Yes, addiction was her enemy. But an enemy by proxy. She had never used, bought, sold, provided to anyone else, transported, or made drugs of any kind. She had never been arrested or served time in jail on drug-related issues of any kind, or any other kind for that matter.

But here she sat and waited. Waited as her eldest son, at this very moment, sat locked up waiting to see what would happen to him. Waited as people she does not know, people who do not know her son, make decisions that will impact the rest of his life based on bad decisions and choices he had made while his mind was altered by addiction.

Waited to find out what would happen to her youngest son. The charges overshadowing his life also related to addiction.

Waited to see what the future would hold for her daughter, also caught up in addiction. Her daughter has been fighting back. They all have. She waited for those victories. Yet, even victories seemed to be temporary.

She waited, waited to see if her children, the children she raised, not the children addiction had created.

While these waiting periods were difficult, this was not the wait that tore at her heart. These were not the waiting that caused such conflict.

Reaching for the stack of journals once again, she wrote nearly the same thing in each one. She wrote of day-to-day things, working, cooking, hobbies, and family – always family. Interspersed through her writing were her love, her longing, her deep sadness for time missed, and her constant waiting.

She waited through the feelings. Sometimes they hit hard and fast, without warning. Other times they simply washed over her like a summer breeze, enveloping her whole being.

The clocked chimed as another hour passed – and then –

Tick – anger came. Anger that stole her joy. Why had this happened to her children, her family? Would her family never be whole again?

Tock – failure, and guilt. Her failure, guilt she readily accepted. Where had she gone wrong as a parent? Would there never be a time to try and help her children fix their past mistakes? If she had been stricter, less strict, more – something, less – anything – perhaps life would have turned out differently. Were their bad decisions somehow her fault?

Tick – anxiety, a now constant companion – the unknown. What would happen, how much of their lives would be lost this time?

Tock – resentment, now directed toward her children. What were they thinking? They screwed up her life as well as their own.

Tick – disappointment, utter devastation. She had not the means to fight for her grandchildren when the other parent, the other grandparents had gotten custody. Money does talk. The other grandparents made decisions regarding her grandchildren. Through no fault of her own, she had been cut out of their lives without reason, without warning, without the means to stop it.

Tock – faith, or what was left of it. Would her faith every fully return? The light of her faith had dimmed so much, she questioned its ability to return – yet, without it, she had nothing to hold on to, nothing to build upon.

So, she silently waited – was time her biggest fear? The anguish that she would never see her grandchildren again. The despair that as each day passed, they would forget her. Regret that even though she always sent birthday cards and holiday cards, the children might never actually see them. The heartache that even though she kept journals detailing how loved and missed the children were, they might never read them.

She waited – was time her strongest ally? Perhaps – someday – the children would grow old enough to want to know her and would come searching. They would want to know their other grandparents, their lost family. She waited to see if they would search for her. Perhaps when time passed and they grew older, one of them would see her address on a card or letter. Until then, she waiting – waited to see if she would be able to see them again, to hold them again, to tell them how much she loved and missed them.

Closing the last of the journals, she looked again at the clock, watching as the little hand ticked away the seconds.

As time passed, would she stop blaming herself for the bad choices others had made? Would she let go of the resentment she began harboring toward her children for messing up their lives and losing their children? Would her family ever be whole again?

So many questions. Questions only time would be able to answer.

She waited – to see if time would indeed be her biggest fear or if time would become her strongest ally.

Suddenly she knew. She KNEW what she had been waiting for - she was waiting for TIME.

And the clock chimed as another hour slipped away.