If I tell you right up front, right
in the beginning that I lost him, it will be easier for you to bear. You will
know it’s coming, and it will hurt. But you’ll be able to prepare.
Someone found him in a laundry
basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and close to
death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his story on the ten o’clock news – the little baby left in a
basket at a dingy Laundromat, born to a crack addict and expected to have all
sorts of problems. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that
ran down his body, like he’d been broken at
birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant, but the image stuck in my mind.
Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to him from the start.
It all happened before I was
born, and by the time I met Moses and my mom told me all about him, the story
was old news and nobody wanted anything to do with him. People love babies,
even sick babies. Even crack babies. But babies grow up to be kids, and kids
grow up to be teenagers. Nobody wants a messed up teenager.
And Moses was messed up. Moses
was a law unto himself. But he was also strange and exotic and beautiful. To be
with him would change my life in ways I could never have imagined. Maybe I
should have stayed away. Maybe I should have listened. My mother warned me.
Even Moses warned me. But I didn’t stay away.
And so begins a story of pain and
promise, of heartache and healing, of life and death. A story of before and
after, of new beginnings and never-endings. But most of all...a love story.
“I haven’t cried today,” I
realized suddenly, and Moses gave in and sat down beside me, his size and heat
making me curl against him and lean my head on his shoulder. He ran a big hand
over my hair and left it cradled against my face. I turned my cheek and kissed
his palm and felt him shudder. Then he wrapped both of his arms around me so I
could bury my face in his chest and he could rest his head on my hair.
“If you keep being sweet I will break my
new record,” I whispered. “And I’ll cry again.”
“Crying from sweetness doesn’t count,” he
whispered back, and I felt the moisture prick my eyes, just as I’d predicted. “Gi
used to say happy tears watered our gratitude. She even had a cross-stitch that
said as much. I thought it was stupid.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Ah . . . so Gi was a believer in the
five greats.” I pressed my lips against his throat, wanting to get as close to
him as I could.
“Gi was a believer in all good things,” he
rubbed his cheek softly against my hair, nuzzling me.
“Especially you.”
“Even me,” Moses
said, lifting his hand to my chin.
Website:
http://www.authoramyharmon.com/
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Amy Harmon knew at an early age
that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between
writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat
fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain
her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story.
Amy Harmon has been a
motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home
school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices
Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in 2007
called “What I
Know” – also
available on Amazon and wherever digital music is sold. She has written five
novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, the
New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue, Making Faces and most recently,
Infinity + One.
Her newest book, The Law of Moses
releases November 27, 2014.
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