Camp

Losing hope

      The excitement was more than I could take.  The sweaty palms, the slithering snakes in the pit of my stomach and the every increasing beat of my already stressed out heart.  The miles went by slower and slower until I was sure I was in the middle of rush hour in the busiest city in the United States.

       How was it possible that I was more nervous in picking her up that I was in leaving her at this camp not ten days ago?  She is only seven, but already her own person, a friend as well as a daughter.  I missed her every one of the ten days that she learned new things and saw things in a way she never saw them before.  She made new friends.  She had told me that in our one time only phone call that she missed me and I couldn't wait to feel her tiny arms wrap around me once again.

       There she is.  I see her, she looks so happy here, her little white cane tapping on the ground in front of her as she laughs at something some little girl is saying to her. 

       She heard me before I could reach her and she rushed toward me and threw her arms around me.  She was so glad to see me.

         "Mom, I'm going to stay here."

          Six words?  Six words to make a grown woman fall to her knees?  I had raised her, I had taught her about the big bad world, what did they have here that I couldn't give the blind child I had given so much care to the last seven years?  Deep down I know, but it doesn't stop the pain.  She doesn't need me anymore.