You Gotta Have Faith: Three Part Weekend Freewrite

My brother did this weird thing with turtles. He loved turtles, hell, he loved ALL animals. Turtles, however, were his favorite. He used to say that he wanted to be a turtle when he grew up.

We all laughed and thought that was the silliest thing he could have ever said. He still insisted that when he was older, he would definitely be a turtle. He wanted to take his time and do things, which he kind of did anyway, because he was a little slow sometimes. I suppose maybe he wanted to be a turtle sot hat the kids at school wouldn't tease him about it anymore.

In hindsight, I wish we hadn't laughed at his dreams, as silly as they seemed.

He wanted to be like everyone else, but it just wasn't meant to be. Back in those days, there was no internet and a single mom didn't really have the time or the money to reach out and find medical help for things like that. It's just how life was. Some kids were slower than others. "They'll grow out of it" and "They'll be fine" were always the reassurances when my mom DID try to find help or answers.

He switched schools. From the bigger public school with the bullies, to a private Christian school where he flourished, for a while.

Of course he still had to come home. To the local kids who were a pain in the ass and still teased him about everything. About being slow, calling him stupid because he wasn't like them. Things that kids do that break the hearts of other children while the adults still look on and poo poo it, saying over and over, "They're just kids" "boys will be boys" "It'll be fine, just tell him to put on his big boy pants and deal with it"

Adults tend to forget how hard it is to be a child in the first place. How isolating and terrifying it can be to be relentlessly bullied. Told you aren't enough, aren't good enough, pushed and shoved and laughed at. Every day, more of the same.

His only escape was school.

One day, things changed... My mom, she found a diamond bracelet in the back of the car. We had NO idea how it could have gotten there. Hell, it was probably worth more than the entire car altogether. I may not have mentioned it, but we were broke ass people. A single mom, an absent dad who resented paying his $50 a month child support for three kids (and so pretty much didn't). There is no way that anyone we even knew would own a diamond bracelet and if we did, they sure wouldn't have been riding around in our car.

My mom being the religious type was sure that God had put it there to help us. Now she could have the money to pay for my brother to get some help, maybe some medication to help him feel better, fit in better... anything. He was so depressed anymore that he was barely functioning. He didn't even want to go to school anymore, because he got bullied about that too. Life was just getting harder and my mom was feeling at a loss. There didn't seem to be anything she could do to actually help with his problems, his bullies, his struggles. She grabbed onto that diamond bracelet like it was the answer to everything. She prayed over it and prayed some more, trying to find the answers for how to best use it to help my brother.

It was about a month later that a salesman came to our house selling vacuums. As I said before, we were broke and there was no way we were going to have the money to drop on a vacuum, but by some weird chance (yeah, my mom said it was God), this sales guy happened to see the diamond bracelet.

He freaked out and said it was just like his mother's old diamond bracelet that had been lost years ago after she died. He offered my mom a crap ton of money to buy it and she accepted. Of course. She knew then that God had definitely sent the bracelet to help her pay for therapy or help for my brother.

Then came that weekend in Duluth. My mom had found someone who claimed to be able to heal minds, to heal kids with learning disabilities like my brother. She just happened to charge the exact amount we'd gotten for the bracelet, minus the cost for gas. My mom, of course, was not surprised by this. She said that 'God always provides' and the fact that it was the perfect amount just meant that God had set the whole thing up. I just watched and waited to see what would happen next.

We drove up to Duluth in our rickety little station wagon and made it all the way there without breaking down, having a flat tire or anything. That was pretty unusual for our car and again, my mom just said, "Well praise the Lord for getting us here safely!"

We met the woman who said she was a healer and I think my brother was even more suspicious of her than I was, which was saying a lot. She took him into a room and before the door closed, I saw a table laid out with pretty rocks (apparently they were crystals) and a weird, smoky smell wafting out. I just kind of shook my head at the weird shit my mom managed to get us into and picked up an old Reader's Digest sitting in the little waiting room-like area.

My brother waas behind those doors for what seemed like forever. I read every joke in every Reader's Digest there and he still wasn't done. Mom was getting nervous, because she would shush me every time I'd laugh. I didn't see what the big deal was. We were getting my brother better, right? Isn't that cause for happiness?

Anyway, he eventually came out. It was... odd. He seemed taller somehow. Different in a way I couldn't describe if you paid me. He just seemed... light. Maybe it was happiness that I hadn't seen on him for years and years since he was a little boy. Maybe that's why he looked different. He walked by and punched me playfully on the arm. He hadn't acted that way in as long as I could remember.

My mom cried and hugged the woman for way too long, in my opinion. She apparently thought he looked happy, too.

Life was hopeful again, thanks to a diamond bracelet and this crazy healer woman. I couldn't wait to see what happened when we got home.

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Photo is mine. It's actually a photo of my mom and brothers. The first section of this story is completely true and I wish we had found a way to help him while he was still young enough to get it. He committed suicide 20 years ago this February. Sorry for the sad post, but he's been on my mind a lot since we were just up visiting my mom and other brother for the holidays.

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Other Writing of mine that you might be interested in:

Getting Older, Wiser and Crankier

Trip of a Lifetime: Short Story

I Would Stay: An Intense Emotional Short Story

Reading of one of my freewrite short stories