Open Your Eyes

I'm walking.
But I keep hearing this faint ticking.
clicking.
Clocking.
Its distracted me.
So I turn my attention towards this noise.
Its calling my name.
Asking for me to follow it.
So I surrender.
And I do.
Its whispering,
I have something to show you.
Unraveling my entire life.
All these memories.
From childhood and everything in between.
Lying everywhere,
There seem to be skeleton keys.
I begin reluctantly walking towards doors.
Frightened.
But also excited.
Having no clue what is about to slam into my eyes.
My heart.
My mind.
Having no idea how it will make me feel.
I slowly open the first door while its loudly creaking.
I see a little girl with dirty blond hair.
Rays of sunlight.
Smoke.
And she's just sitting there.
Alone on the floor.
Playing with toys.
Like Barbie's.
I can hear barney.
The purple dinosaur.
I start to cry as she turns to me.
She's precious.
Vulnerable and beautiful.
She's extremely needy.
Having only come up to my knees.
At this stage,
She needs me.
Unable to properly care for herself.
Something is behind me.
Pushing me.
Into this door frame.
Towards her unruly,
Unkempt dirty blond mane.
Towards these eyes that have been staring back at me,
My entire life.
I suck it up and stop crying.
My only wish is to hold her.
Console her.
Never leaving her alone again.
Be there and be her best friend.
Her confidant.
Her mother.
Anything she needed.
I want to give her wings.
Wing to take off and fly.
Away from this floor.
And out of this door.
I want to show her what is waiting for her.
She doesn't have to be such a scared little girl.
Its not such a scary world.
Its ok to put it aside to finish school.
I want to show her the day she has her own baby girl.
With dirty blond hair.
Someone does care.
And I'm right here.
So here I stand.
I call out her name.
Lia Mae Johnson.
And ask her to give me her hand.
We begin to walk these hallways together.
Hand in hand.
Picking up keys off the floor.
And bravely begin to enter these doors.
There's nothing this little girl hasn't seen in her fragile age.
Sadly.
In fact, I hand her the key.
She unlocks it while looking at me.
I assure her its going to be alright.
As she begins to cry.
Scared like me.
To see what's inside.
Occasionally its too much.
You just have to pray,
While covering your innocent eyes.
At other times,
Joyfully screaming from excitement.
At a moment in life,
Where you were your happiest.
Its not always bliss in life.
At times it can bring you to your lowest.
Crawl if you have to.
Never stop moving.
She turns back to me,
Grabbing my knee.
Just as I did to my own mother.
We can hear her laughing!
We smile and look at each other,
And take off running.
Towards this contagious noise.
Towards her hazel eyes.
The minute we reach her she embraces us.
Affirming that its in fact,
Going to be alright.
Now its us three.
Walking these hallways,
Picking up keys.
Vickie was probably the most frightened.
She's literally shaking.
Her hands are trembling.
Asking if we really have to open these doors.
We shake our heads yes.
Confirming its a must.
We hear a "Click",
As she turns to us.
With tears in her very own eyes.
Just like ours.
We see grandma Peggy behind this door.
And her hundreds of bingo doters.
Her brown curly hair,
And her own hazel eyes.
My mother lets go for only a second.
She collapses.
Feeling overwhelmingly relieved.
Knowing her own mother never left her.
She's still right by her side.
On the other side.
Of these invisible doors and walls.
She's embracing her own baby girl.
In spirituality,
There are no phone calls.
Grandma Peggy assures us its ok to leave.
That she's not going anywhere.
We can come back another day.
Whenever we wish to.
But that we should begin again.
So we put back on our shoes.
Holding my mothers hand,
With this child on her hip.
Its as if age hasn't taken its toll.
Its as if we don't have a number.
We are so happy in this moment.
That we almost missed our next door.
We almost tripped and stumbled.
So we stop.
Once again.
And take a deep breath before unlocking it.
What we say next we could have never been prepared for.
Every soul we've ever loved was behind this door.
Frozen.
Standing there on the floor.
We split up and go walking the room.
Looking into hundreds of sets of frozen eyes.
Peering through time.
In this moment,
Time is stopped.
Without the movement,
They are extremely beautiful.
Just as they are.
Like statues or stars.
We smile while leaving this door.
Wondering why we were meant to walk these floors.
We stop and begin to ponder.
And wonder why.
We begin to take up a lot of time.
The whys become overwhelming.
Suddenly hearing the chooing of a train.
We are now in a race for our lives.
Because we simply asked why.
Our hands are ripped apart no matter how hard we try.
No matter how hard we fight.
Next time I will take an extra second to embrace you,
Embracing us.
I'm sorry that its so late.
But I want you to know,
That when I opened that first door,
I saw you.
You were in the room.
You were not sitting in the sunlight.
You were standing in the dark behind the curtains.
With your hands tied behind your back.
You were under attack.
And only trying to save your precious baby girl.
It was only until I arrived,
That you had the strength to fight and try.
Forgiveness is the difference.
Between death and or life.
The minute I was able to forgive,
I was given a gift.
A set of keys.
And with your own forgiveness,
You were therefore able to meet up with me to walk these dark floors.
To walk with both of us.
This broken little girl and I.
The one we have both fought for to survive.
The love and answers were here this entire time.
We just had to be brave enough to first open our eyes.
Now I desperately need in these doors.
Even if I have to take them off the hinges.