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The Yellow Balloon

The Yellow Balloon

Written by Kate Hurley / 06.05.2020

A little black girl with butterfly barrettes

Ran up to me as I stepped off the bus.

She laughed

The kind of laugh that makes you

Look up for a moment 

And remember there is sky there.

 

With hope falling on every syllable, she said 

“this 

is

for

you.”

She reached her hand towards me

Holding the string of a

Yellow balloon.

 

I hesitated

And the moment was heavy 

With a hundred questions

I used to laugh like that 

But somewhere along the way I realized 

That beauty came with pain

 

And so I chose a life that was somewhere between 

Pain and beautiful

 

A life that was very comfortable 

But very alone

 

A life 

Without grief

But also without reverie. 

 

This gift that she offered me

This gift of the yellow balloon

It wasn’t in-between.

 

It was beautiful

 

I had forgotten what beautiful looked like

So I hesitated

 

And this little girl, didn’t she understand

How different the worlds we came from? 

Her life filled with 

Harsh judgements that she didn't deserve

Mine filled with 

Screens and fences

 

Her people wrestling with

Their hundreds of years in chains

My people trying to understand 

How we could ever do anything so cruel

 

Shouldn’t I be the one giving something to her? 

And so I hesitated

 

And that little girl, if she could see

What was inside of me

She wouldn’t want to give me that yellow balloon

 

Despite my neat house and my 

Church every Sunday

 

I am very scared

Like a little girl with butterfly barrettes. 

 

I live with thoughts dark and sad

And I wonder if anyone would love me 

If they really knew me. 

 

I didn’t deserve this gift.

 

And so I hesitated.

 

Finally, I bent down with tears in my eyes and said

 

“Honey, I don’t think I should take this ballon away from you. “

“But I want to give it to you” she said back. 

 

She blinked.

“I have an idea….Let’s hold on to it together, and then we can let it go!”  

 

I put my hand over hers.

 

“1….2…..3!”

 

We opened our hands

And our shackles fell

 

In that moment I felt it again:

 

Grief and reverie

 

But this time I wanted them both. 

I wanted all of it. 

 

Together we watched the balloon floating in the distance

Sunlight falling on us like baptism

Like reckless mercy

Like relentless love

 

I looked down at the girl, 

Our hands still intertwined

And I realized that

Despite all of our differences

In that moment we were just two wayward children 

That had seen a glimpse of home.

 

Category: Inner Healing Blog

Tags: Reconcilliation

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You are stronger than you think you are. 

 

You, your hands dirtied with the soil where you till up the rocks of generations gone by. Your tears watering the ground, making the roots grow deep and wide while you are unaware. You labor, you dig, you claw this tiny piece of land where others buried their dreams and gave up trying. 

 

But not you. You keep going.You never give up. You see the tree in the seed, and you will fight until that tree is standing before you, it's long willowing arms grasping your hope in its branches. 

 

You are stronger than you think you are. 

 

You, covered in all your scars. Where your face was grazed with false imaginings that you were not beautiful enough. Where your hands were caught in fields of cotton when you didn't believe you were free. Where you were marked across your chest the day you thought that they left because you weren't worth it. Look closely, love. Look closely because those scars are gilded with gold. Those scars have become your crown. 

 

You are stronger than you think you are. 

 

You, dancing there with your face against the wind. Not a pretty dance, but a wild dance. A hold on for dear life to the hope dance. An I will never stop believing in your goodness dance. A shake the sadness off your skin dance. You, with your feet pounding against the ground to the rhythm of your unsurrendering spirit. With your knees soiled and bleeding from the prayers and the longings and the times you almost gave up. With your arms thrown up in surrender and beckoning and awe. There is burning against your back as you lift up your face, because your wings are returning, love. Your wings are returning.

 

Look at me and believe now. You are stronger than you think you are. Stronger than you think you are. 

 

 

 

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