“Oh God”, (sniff, sniff) “save Charlotte.” “God, save her soul”, my mother would cry and plead behind doors I was forbidden to pass unless there was an emergency.
With this memory, I can hear her voice so clear I could almost tell you every pitch of her groans, every rise and drop of its sound; every tone of agony it seemed to give her. Even as this mystery is recalled and the eyes of my past speak, I can hear her voice break and crack like I’m listening for the first time again.
For it seems only moments ago I was there; I travel so easily to these events sealed safe as tightly saved treasures, so rare there is no price tag to its power that lives today. Only moments ago, between being a child running free, to an adult with great grandchildren myself, I passed by this prayer room door on my way to my own playground of pleasures and this sound broke though my world like an explosion of fear difficult to explain.
The weeping of a heart has a sound like no other, piercing the hardest of souls. My emotions would take all control and my curiosity was my new leader as my name, “Charlotte” was spoken.
Sometimes in an attempt to hear my mom clearer, I would desperately work at pressing my ear hard against the small keyhole below the door knob as I circled and searched to place the center of my ear at the best possible location for sound from the forbidden room.
Or, if it became obvious I was not going to hear, I would peer through the key hole so that I might catch a glimpse of how one appears while in such agony.
If these attempts still left me unable to fulfill my curiosity, I might lie on the floor trying to maneuver my sight under the door sill for this possible visual.
But whatever mission I had previously been on, it was just no longer of any meaning to explore until I had exhausted all tries to hear and make more sense of mom’s cry.
I just couldn’t pull away from why all the torture I seemed to be putting her in.
What love spoken through the cry of a mother...!
If I recall my mother's prayers with such vividness, and I do... how much more has the heavenly Father heard and remembered our prayer cries for those we love.
Amazing..!
