Waiting

 

It seems my whole life has been one of waiting.

Waiting for my father to come home from work so we can have dinner.

Waiting for Grandma to finish washing the clothes so she can go to work and Aunt Lete and I can hang those heavy weight shirts and sheets on clotheslines sagging behind the house, then prop them up with long wooden poles.

Waiting for the butterfly to land so I can pinch his wings together and hold my prize for a few minutes that will intrigue my three year old eyes and end his short life even sooner.

Waiting for school to start and then to end, for summer to come followed by fall.

Waiting to be twelve then sixteen. Waiting for the boy I have a crush on to deliver the newspaper, or for the neighbors to invite us over to swim in their pool.

Waiting. Always waiting.

For the man I am engaged to, to come home from Vietnam. To find out if the house we put an offer on will be ours, or if I am finally pregnant at last -- and this time it will keep. Waiting to adopt the children who are to become our family.

Waiting for happy times, peaceful times, joyful times, sprinkled sparsely through what should be heavenly times.

And then the waiting ends. The children are grown. The marriage is over. The dreams are in the past. Hopes lay like wilted dandelions hung in dead daisy chains on limp stems from doorways that have long since closed.

All that waiting for things promised, things wanted, things hoped for . . .