Feathers

Chapter 2 - Meeting Mary

What a happy day! What joy! to hear Mary’s first cries. I can’t tell you how much happiness and relief that sound brought everyone who heard it. My Great-great-great-granddad was the first of us to meet Mary and the story he told my Great-great-granddad is the story I will tell my Children. I will use the same words, the same intonation and my voice will be full of the same joy that his was as if I had been there myself. The story has always been told that way by my family and always will be.

Mary’s parents, Fred and Hazel had given up hope of ever having a child. There had been so many tears, so many babies who had died. Hazel had blamed herself and screamed at God. She had begged and pleaded. The pregnancy was frightening. Each day Hazel would speak to Mary inside her womb and tell her of the wonderful life Mary would have. Hazel made promises that she had no idea how to keep, she only knew that she would give her life in exchange for the child that she so longed for.

My Great-great-great-grandad listened to Hazel’s prayers and said them along with her. He wanted this woman who he loved as much as his own children to have the happiness that she deserved.

Fred was overcome with emotion at the sound of Mary crying he rushed into the room past the midwife and just stopped and stared – tears pouring down his face. Hazel and Fred finally had the child that they longed for they would do everything they could to make her the happiest little girl in the world.