Waiting for Raindrops
Sarabeth is scared to death
To hear what the doctors will say
She hasn’t been well since the day that she fell
And the bruises just won’t go away
Caroline scuffed her feet on the worn slats of the porch. Back and forth she rocked on the swing, her motion mimicking the action of her mind. Please. Why? Please. How? Please. Could it be?
Wrapping herself in her favorite pale green baby blanket, she’d fled outside, not able to stand the tension of the house any longer. How could her mother bear to sit there so patiently? Rubbing the soft fleece against her cheek for comfort, Caroline pulled her ears away from her thoughts and back to listening. She’d left a window open the slightest crack, hoping it would go undetected by her attentive mother during under these circumstances.
Her daddy's pride and joy
Baptized in her mama's tears soon after she was born
'Cause the doctor said she'd never live
To see her sweet sixteen
She still remembered the day when she was six and her parents deemed her old enough to be informed of the lesser specifics of why her life was the way it was. They hadn’t cried then, though she could feel their distress seeping off them in waves. When she was thirteen, however, then… then they wept. That was the day they told her. These moments were ingrained in her memory, carved into her brain.
How could she ever forget her parents’ tears?
They were angels in waiting.
Waiting for wings to fly from this world,
Away from their pain
Caroline had nearly cried earlier that day, during her biology class. Only the iron will against tears she’d built up over her fifteen long, hard years of fighting for life had stopped them from flowing. They’d talked about incurable diseases of the heart and lungs, and how they were often interrelated. The teacher had spoken facts, but he knew nothing. He couldn’t say what it was really like. When he’d said that people with such diseases often died young unless they were lucky enough to get a transplant, Caroline almost broke, almost screamed at him and his ignorance.
I restrained myself. How could he know?
Would you see the world? Would you chase your dreams?
Settle down with a family,
I wonder what would you name your babies?
A future? Caroline had ruled that out instinctively when she was young and from knowledge when she was older. She’d never considered it. Even though other sophomores, including her best friends, were considering careers, planning their high school courses, and looking at colleges, all she could do was watch. When a teacher asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, Caroline answered the only way she could: Alive.
The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask
It's hard to see the pain behind the mask
Bearing the burden of a secret storm
Sometimes she wishes she was never born
No one at school knew. Not even her relatives did. She always said it was her quiet father who had instilled a love of privacy in her.
But she knew it was more than that. Much more than that. She had lived in Arizona when she was little, until she was seven, during a time of drought. One miraculous day, the missing rain poured down on the region, bringing hope to all of the people there, especially the children, whose teachers allowed them to stream outside into the downpour and rejoice its arrival.
Caroline couldn’t go out. She knew she couldn’t. She watched the other kids dance and jump and twirl, knowing that would never be her. Her best friend at the time, a boy named Erik, paused long enough to spot her staring mournfully out the window.
“Come on out, Carrie!” he’d chimed, coming over to pull her out.
“I can’t. I’m sick,” she’d told him. Then she explained how if she got a simple cold she'd "be in big trouble, ‘cause my heart and other stuff aren’t strong enough."
The next day, everyone had known, and nothing was ever the same again. They moved, and Caroline had learned people didn’t want a sick girl. She’d remained silent after that.
A new hope
Where is your freedom
A new hope
Cast off your burdens
It’d always been so much a part of her life, she’d noticed immediately when it’d changed. Caroline was never able to participate in P.E., a fact she resented, as she felt she was made to run. If Annie hadn’t challenged her to a race so unthinkingly… she hadn’t even thought about it herself until she’d noticed the ease with which she breathed and the calmness of her heart.
Caroline had gone straight to the office and called her mother to pick her up, explaining what she felt. Though upset that her daughter had endangered herself, the glimmer of hope that something might have changed for the good overpowered the worry. They rushed to the doctor, who promised to call with the results that night.
I've been waiting for a long time
For this moment to come
I'm destined
For anything... at all
Now they were waiting for the news. Though her doctor had stressed the fact that the chances were one in a million that she was even a little bit better, for the first time in her life, Caroline allowed herself to hope. She gazed up into the stars and prayed with all her crippled heart.
Please, God. Let me live.
Waiting for this life to change
Seems like it's taking me forever
And I can't hold on, this life is breaking
The phone rang.
Her mother’s voice cracked on “Hello?”
And then…
Sobs filled the air. Caroline couldn’t bring herself to turn around, though she had a clear view through the window behind her.
She didn’t need to. The next words to filter outside through her mother’s hysterical crying were her father’s “It’s a miracle.”
Wetness crawled down Caroline’s cheek, the first she’d allowed herself since she was four. A different kind of wetness fell too, pitter-pattering onto the street. Her repressed tears continued to fall silently, unheeded, as she whispered alone into the night:
“I can dance in the rain.”
And for a moment…
She isn't scared.
