Ella 6: about that curb

...happy, beautiful, strong, kind. She had meant to become the things she dreamed of when she was a child,
to be a master chef,
to dance in the moonlight like nothing else in the world mattered,
to change her little place on the planet with a smile that spoke volumes,
to be happier, to listen longer, to love harder, to dream bigger, to just be more, and now...

she was stepping off the curb that day on the quiet street in front of the house with the perfect white picket fence, and she heard her ankle snap. But that's not the interesting part. She fell to the ground and grabbed her foot. She was sitting in the middle of that quiet street in front of the house with the perfect white picket fence, and as if waiting for something, Ella held her breathe for the slightest moment, she paused everything. No tear, no yell, and no body came because no body saw her fall.

And this angered her. She was angry that her husband was at work instead of home to help her; that her sister moved away to the neighboring town instead of living next door like she told her to; that her children were grown and lived so far away; that her neighbors weren't more alert and helpful. Her anger at everything and everybody was a stabbing pain in her heart that hurt more than the broken and now swollen ankle that caused her to crumble to the ground in the first place. And on top of all her rage, Ella was embarassed for falling off the curb on the quiet street in front of the house with the perfect white pickett fence. She was so consumed that she just stayed there in a pitiful little puddle refusing to move. . .

(c) Jamillah Warner, www.gospelnerve.com, I got the nerve to say . . .