Member-only story
You Love Your Child
No Matter What
I knew someone not long ago who disowned their child.
Was the child mean, or cruel, or selfish? I asked because I did not know how; How could a parent disown their child, save for some sin beyond all sins.
The child taunted not the weaker ones. He stole not their shoes nor tormented them on twitter. He shared his toys and hardly complained (not much, not much) when his toys returned broken.
What crime, I wondered, did this child commit, to be banished forever from hearth and home?
The child came out of the closet. He wanted wholeness. He now has a hole he tries to fill… but it leaks sometimes…
I knew another child who was cast out.
Precocious baby bird who left the gilded cage of her parents’ creation. They tried to catch her but she flew, inquisitive little girl bird, to drink from fountains of learning, to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to come home with more questions.
The desire for the life of the mind was anathema to the seclusion of her parents’ desires so she was banished.
Barred from the warm nest she cries, bereft, she cries for shelter in the cold.
I knew a third child that was abandoned.
