It was 2002.
My husband was the store manager of the D.omino's Pizza at Lockbourne and Williams in the south end of Columbus. I also worked there on my days off from my "real" job.
There was a 16-year-old girl working there. Amanda. Dating the assistant manager, 18-year-old Darrell.
It was like a bad country song. Amanda knew that Darrell was sleeping around on her, and she grew more and more clingy and needy, as a 16-year-old girl is wont to do.
She got pregnant with Darrell's baby.
Did getting pregnant cement Darrell's fidelity? Do pigs fly?
So needy, clingy Amanda became needy, clingy, pregnant Amanda. Working with her baby daddy who was bringing other girls to the store and flaunting them.
At 22 weeks, Amanda gave birth to a sleeping little girl.
I remember thinking that it was a blessing. One less baby in the welfare system. One more chance for Amanda to have a normal life. I never, for one second, considered that girl's pain.
Now I live that pain.
Granted, it's different. Amanda bounced back emotionally in record time. And caught pregnant with Darrell again in a few months.
I can't help but want to reach back through time and smack my sanctimonious self in the head.
So when I read comments like those on this post, I understand the perspective of someone who has never been blessed to be the mommy of an angel. And I pray that the lesson I had to learn the hard way doesn't have to repeat itself on them.
easy to judge from the outside looking in huh?
ReplyDelete*hugs* people just don't understand unless they have been through it.
ReplyDeleteLike any experience, you don't know what it's like until you experience it for yourself. You can only imagine and sometimes our assumptions are wrong.
ReplyDelete