To be perfectly honest, the first month was blissful.
When Jeanne, age six, Julia, four and Michael, three,
and I moved from Missouri to my hometown in northern
Illinois the very day of my divorce from their father, I
was just happy to find a place where there was no
fighting or abuse.
But after the first
month I started missing my old friends and neighbors. I
missed our lovely, modern, ranch-style brick home in the
suburbs of St. Louis, especially after we'd settled into
the 98-year-old white frame house we'd rented, which was
all my "post-divorce" income could afford.
In St. Louis we'd
had all the comforts: a washer, dryer, dishwasher, TV
and a car. Now we had none of these. After the first
month in our new home, it seemed that we'd gone from
middle-class comfort to poverty-level panic.
The bedrooms
upstairs in our ancient frame house weren't even heated,
but somehow the children didn't seem to notice. The
linoleum floors, cold on their little feet, simply
encouraged them to dress faster in the mornings and to
hop into bed quicker in the evenings.
I complained about
the cold as the December wind whistled under every
window and door in that old frame house. But they
giggled about the "funny air places" and simply snuggled
under the heavy quilts Aunt Bernadine brought over the
day we moved in.
I was frantic
without a TV. "What will we do in the evenings without
our favorite shows?" I asked. I felt cheated that the
children would miss out on all the Christmas specials.
But the children were more optimistic and much more
creative than I. They pulled out their games and begged
me to play "Candyland" and "Old Maid" with them.
We cuddled together
on the gray tattered couch the landlord provided and
read picture book after picture book from the public
library. At their insistence we played records, sang
songs, popped popcorn, created magnificent Tinker-Toy
towers and played hide-and-go seek in our rambling old
house. The children taught me how to have fun without a
TV.
One shivering
December day, just a week before Christmas, after
walking the two miles home from my temporary part-time
job at a catalog store, I remembered that the week's
laundry had to be done that evening. I was dead tired
from lifting and sorting other people's Christmas
presents, and somewhat bitter, knowing that I could
barely afford any gifts for my own children.
As soon as I picked
up the children at the baby-sitter's, I piled four large
laundry baskets full of dirty clothes into the
children's little red wagon, and the four of us headed
toward the Laundromat three blocks away.
Inside we had to
wait for washing machines and then for people to vacate
the folding tables. The sorting, washing, drying and
folding took longer than usual.
Jeanne asked, "Did
you bring any raisins or crackers, Mommy?"
"No," I snapped. "We'll have supper as soon as we
get home."
Michael's nose was
pressed against the steamy glass window. "Look Mommy!
It's snowing! Big flakes!"
Julia added, "The
street's all wet. It's snowing in the air but not on
the ground!"
Their excitement
only upset me more. If the cold wasn't bad enough, now
we had snow and slush to contend with. I hadn't even
unpacked the box with their boots and mittens yet.
At last the clean,
folded laundry was stacked into the laundry baskets and
placed two-baskets deep in the little red wagon. It was
pitch dark outside. Six-thirty already? No wonder they
were hungry! We usually ate at five.
The children and I
inched our way into the cold winter evening and slipped
along the slushy sidewalk. Our procession of three
little people, a crabby mother, and four baskets of
fresh laundry in an old red wagon moved slowly as the
frigid wind bit into our faces. We crossed the busy
four-lane street at the crosswalk. When we reached the
curb, the front wagon wheels slipped on the ice and
tipped the wagon over on its side, spilling all the
laundry into a slushy black puddle.
"Oh no!" I wailed.
"Grab the baskets, Jeanne! Julia, hold the wagon! Get
back up on the sidewalk, Michael!"
I slammed the
dirty, wet clothes back into the baskets.
"I hate this!" I
screamed. Angry tears spilled out of my eyes.
I hated being poor
with no car and no washer or dryer. I hated the
weather. I hated being the only parent responsible for
three small children. And if you want to know the
truth, I hated the whole blasted Christmas season.
When we reached
home I unlocked the door, threw my purse across the room
and stomped off to my bedroom for a good cry.
I sobbed loud
enough for the children to hear. Selfishly I wanted
them to know how miserable I was. Life couldn't get any
worse. The laundry was still dirty, we were all hungry
and tired, there was no supper started and no outlook
for a brighter future.
When the tears
finally stopped I sat up and stared at a wooden plaque
of Jesus that was hanging on the wall at the foot of my
bed. I'd had that plaque since I was a small child and
carried it with me to every house I'd ever lived. It
showed Jesus with his arms outstretched over the earth.
Obviously solving the problems of the world.
I kept looking at
his face, expecting a miracle. I looked and waited, and
finally said aloud, "God, can't you do something
to make my life better?" I desperately wanted an
angel on a cloud to come down and rescue me.
But nobody
came…except Julia, who peeked into my bedroom and told
me in her tiniest four-year-old voice that she had set
the table for supper.
I could hear
six-year-old Jeanne in the living room sorting the
laundry into two piles, "really dirty, sorta clean,
really dirty, sorta clean,…"
Three-year-old
Michael popped into my room and gave me a picture of the
first snow that he had just colored.
And you know what?
At that very moment I did see, not one, but THREE
angels before me! Three little cherubs, eternally
optimistic and once again, pulling me from gloom and
doom into the world of "things will be better tomorrow,
Mommy."
Christmas that year
was magical as we surrounded ourselves with a very
special kind of love, based on the joy of doing simple
things together. One thing's for sure: single
parenthood was never again as frightening or as
depressing for me as it was the night the laundry fell
out of the little red wagon. Those three angels have
kept my spirits buoyed and today, 30 years later, they
continue to fill my heart with the presence of God.