blood in my Dinner

I.

Reality showed up again. That sneaky little cat.


II.

But I was glad that it showed up this time. It still refuses to enter through the front door, but I think perhaps I am beginning to find its clumsy and wild entrances somewhat charming, if not at least entertaining and adventurous.


III.

It was just supposed to be dinner.

But it ended up being one of those nights that, well, everything felt as though it was going wrong.

The chicken was doing something funky and grotesque:

Blood kept boiling out through this tiny tear in the leg quarter. All I could do was stare, as it pulsed and bubbled.

The more I stared, the more it kept bleeding out, dribbling down into the sauce on the bottom of the corning ware dish.

I began to feel nauseous and not hungry.


IV.

Really, though, all the bleeding had nothing to do with the chicken. And everything going wrong had nothing to do with dinner.


V.

I thought it was anger that was making the chicken bleed. I thought it was the ruined dinner that had ignited all the rage.

But the anger was only a front, and it was making the bleeding worse.

Really, it was the hurt. The terror.

Coupled with good old Fear and Hope.

And here's what the chicken was saying:

I'm afraid that they're going to let go of me.

I'm afraid that now that I have found my biological mother and father, they're going to think that I am leaving them.

And then-- they will leave me.

Hope slides in next to Fear and smiles--pats Fear on the arm and remarks that being Hope and all, it can reassure us that Love knows how to stop this kind of bleeding.


VI.

I pick up the phone.

Mom, Dad?


VII.

I still have a lot to learn about love.

It possesses a strength that no body can comprehend.
It is more true than any truth I have ever encountered.
Its resilience comforts my weakness.
Its willingness brings me to tears.

I begin to wonder if I have ever truly allowed myself to know love.

To let love...

People like to romanticize love, diminish it into nothing but an emotion.

It is so much more than emotion.
It is so much more than romance.
It is so much more than anyone or anything could ever attempt to explain.

The most powerful love is the love born of choice.

That one should so choose of his or her own volition to love another.

To love a stranger as though she is your very own flesh and blood.


VIII.

Gladly, I need not fear that I should bleed.

The day that I arrived, someone made a choice to be there always, not only to hold me when I should bleed, but to always, until the end of time, be the blood that pulses and courses through my very heart.


IX.

And this is a Reality that I will welcome with open arms...even if it does come crashing through the window.