You can find me walking the streets and wham..step on a crack and you’ll break your Mother’s back. Not sure where this saying came from but it kind of stayed with me.
It’s got to be a cardinal sin to step on these “said cracks”.
Cracks happen in life. Sometimes, they’re opportunities inviting you in. Other times, they feel like the abyss you’re falling into when you have no idea what is going on in your life.
My Encounter
I’m minding my own business, walking down the street, when I hear a passer by holler something.
It got my attention, so with a little investigation I drew near to the voice, turns out the person was in need. A disheveled looking girl babbling and rambling.
Southern people have an inclination to help people, it’s placed there from birth. Something God deposits. Southern girls must. I mean we are grateful, thankful and blessed, so the sign says.
We will pull out a ‘bless your heart’ when necessary, but I sometimes question the authenticity of it. Just saying’.
The passer by I see is a girl. Not a street person talking out of her head. Brown streaked dirt stained her face, but I see a girl. A precious girl.
A sister. And a daughter. Way before drugs tainted her mind. I see her trapped within herself. Desperate for freedom.
Desperate to be free from the thing that lied to her and promised her freedom. Instead it locked her up in her own head and life. Taking her captive by the way of her own escape method.
She didn’t even know why she called out to me. But I did. That child inside of her cried out to the mom in me.
I could feel the crack in her Mother’s back. I could see the abyss of that crack she was contained in.
Although, I sure ain’t playing God. I went straight to her in that crack and scooped her straight into my heart. With words of a mom, I said, your mom is calling for you and her back isn’t broken.
Cracks Happen, But So Does God
This crack won’t break her and it won’t break you. Now, get up. Get up and get out because this crack isn’t your real life. It’s a place, it’s not a destiny. It’s a cell to hold you back.
So many other cracks will try to own you. Resist them. Push them back and walk on your street.
Names only have power when you answer to them and give them room. Room for them to grow is poor strategy. Cut them off so they don’t cut you.
You aren’t a roamer or a wanderer. You’re a beacon. A lighthouse that happens to have found herself on a street and fell into a crack.
The lie was you broke your Mother’s back. But you didn’t. Life did that to you, and her. But this isn’t the person that you dreamed of becoming.
Walk on that street if you must, but don’t let it walk on you. And then, you will start to believe that you can gain ground and momentum. You will start jogging instead of street walking.
You’ll jog so hard that the weight of that street will fall off hard. You will be stripping off all the cracks that tried to shatter you.
You will be, and then, you will be still. No more running. No more cracks whispering your name. You will lie down in peace.
Freshly showered, you will crawl into your Mama’s arms. Heart lightened. Free at last.
Your mother whispers in your ear, I knew you would own the streets and they wouldn’t own you. I’ve always known.
It’s Your Turn
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