“No Mom, hold me longer. Why are you always in a hurry?” 

The smell of her freshly washed hair filled the kitchen. A cheap strawberry shampoo, but she liked it. 

“I made you a bagel, with strawberry cream cheese.” Her smile and intention caught me off guard. 

Sweet, I thought as I took a bite and moved past her toward the coffee. I had been away on business for a week and my mind was thinking of other things. 

“Why are you up early?” I asked this teenager who could sleep all day if given the chance. 

“I’m working today, remember? To make money for school clothes.”

Poor girl. We always had enough, but never extra, but the opportunity to make money for school clothes was only part of the excitement of the day. She had been looking forward to spending the time with her aunt. My only sister. She was named after my sister, and my sister was named after our mother’s sister. A unique family name that carries with it implications of creativity, curiosity, and a tiny dash of playful disobedience. 

“Hug me longer Mom. Why are you always in a hurry? I missed you.” She said with a gentle embrace. I paused to take in the moment. 

If the horrible events of this day had ended differently, these would have been her last words to me. 

The scene plays out over and over again in my mind. We stood eye-to-eye that early morning in the kitchen. Her beautiful green-gold eyes searching mine for what she needed. Adorned with too much make-up, maybe, but that was the style. The fragrance of her sun-bleached strawberry scented hair filled the room. An aroma that would soon be replaced with the grimy smell of oil, gasoline, and road. In just an hour her lean 15-year-old body would be tussled around in a rolling car then thrown through glass onto the hot summer’s asphalt. 

As we stood there another girl stepped out from behind her. Her hair was half shaved, and her head partly bandaged, a bit bloodied. There was a paralytic deformity of her right side. An eye that was almost frozen open, with muscles unable to close and squint like that other. Her mouth, asymmetrical and lazy. Her right arm, dead, useless, hanging off her body. Quieted by damage to both her speech centers, unable to speak, yet I heard her pleading, 

“I missed you Mom. Hug me longer.” 

It was the voice this Morning’s Girl. She was still there, but this Evening’s Girl was also there. Who she had been and who she could become. We stood there, we three. 

Time stopped. 

“Hug me longer. I missed you Mom.” I didn’t know who spoke, my gaze moving between them. Then this Morning’s girl moved out of my embrace towards the door.

“I love you Mom. I’m happy you’re home.” Her cheerful tone lingered. We watched her go, a precious ghost girl. One who was present at that moment but also one who would become non-existent after the door closed behind her. Then I felt the one-armed embrace of this Evening’s girl. Still mute, but the words persisted “Hug me longer, I missed you Mom.” 

Who was the ghost girl? Who was the shadow? Who was real? They are both real and both persist. In my memory and in real life. At the same time, broken and whole, battered and beautiful. A paradox? No, a harmonious reality. She remains my beautiful, now, disabled daughter. 

Her soul changed that day, and my soul too. Her body was deeply broken that day, and it remains broken. My heart was deeply broken that day, and it remains broken too. Nothing will heal it. Nothing. I live fully. I rejoice in life and appear to be okay, but I am not. I never will be. My heart quivers beneath a thin layer of what appears to be a scab. Yet like any scab the slightest bump tears the surface and the bloodied spot reappears. 

This is my reality. And in this reality, I remember that God is good, even in the darkest darkness. There are some pains that can never be healed. This type of pain must be released to God. He is the only one strong enough to hold it. In His power it becomes some new, something beautiful. I welcome the pain into my life, for it is part of my journey, and it has formed me. I welcomed it as I welcome the half-expressed smile of my beautiful, disabled daughter.