Jump.

Today, we bring you a guest post from another new contributor to our wonderful community. Her name is Betsy and she’s been a writer for quite some time now. We really connected with her stories of intentional family living, and love that she realized her heart was in being a mother when her son was born in 2007. So she quit her job as a newspaper reporter to love on her kiddos full time. Enjoy Betsy’s first post on the Happy Family Movement…

Drawer by drawer.
Five in all, she climbed.
To the top of the brown buffet.
She’d watched her brother leap from the top.
Down to the carpet below.
But it towered over her head.
So she’d climb.
Sit.
And contemplate.
Could she do it?
Jump?

Then came the day.
Her brother away, she sat alone in her two-year-old worries.
She climbed, again.
To the top of the brown buffet.
Could she do it?
Jump?

She raised her eyes to her mother’s.
Finding no answer, she returned to herself.
Clasping tiny hands together, not noticing how they shook.
She looked.
Out. Under. Right. Left.
From the top of the brown buffet.
Could she do it?
Jump?

Cheeks flushed, lips quivered.
She drew her fingers to her mouth.
She licked two tips.
Her whole body shuddered.
Could she do it?
Jump?

Like a light switch clicked from north to south, fear gone.
A decision came.
Fingers lowered.
Air inhaled.
And then….
She jumped.

Fingers splayed in the air.
Arms flapped, carried away by winged ancestors.
Feet, barely larger than a deck of cards, land hard.
She could do it.
Jump.

It hurt though.
Tears filled joyful eyes.
Didn’t matter.
Her open mouth roared.
“I did it!”
She exhaled.
She could do it.
Jump.

Her mother, too, let out the air she’d been holding.
May she jump, she thought. Always.
Even when fear makes her shake.
May she take careful stock.
And then,
Jump.