Dear kid's By: Jean Mason

Dear kid's

by: Jean Mason

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER ONE

Once upon a time there was a family of five children, the oldest was seven and her name was Ella, she lived with her brothers Mark and Luke who were six who every one called "the twins," they also wen't by the name of "little brats," "trouble makers," and "nose pickers."

the fourth child was named Hope, after all she was the only hope of a peaceful family, she, even though she was only five she was very smart and did a lot of the fight breaking up, or at least if someone started she just had to sit down and cry to get them to stop mostly because one of them would pick her up and carry her to her mother or father, who was always with the baby.

which brings me to the youngest, Brigit, she was the newest addiction to the family and probably the loudest. all she dose is "eat, cry and poop." or so most of the children say when I didn't give them my full attention, my husband frank was probably the most quiet man you would ever meet, her didn't sit around and gripe about the state of the house when he got home, but just sat down next to me and kissed all the children hello, then he would take a shower and change before coming out for dinner to be with the rest of the family.

I can't say that I liked the long hours my husband had to be at work, and it wasn't the nicest job around but it paid the bills for now, and the way I saw it a lot of people didn't have jobs at all, so I had to let go of the idea of having him home 24 hours a day, it was really more like five hours in the day time, from six to ten and the he came home at eight.

then again I was had to learn to be grateful to have him that much some of our friends who used to work with my husband at his old job, when they were all laid off they had to take the first job they could, witch for a lot of them men't moving so far away that we couldn't talk and hang out anymore,which was a real heartache for our whole family, the children didn't have many friends outside the church witch had to turn into a twice a month church meeting at peoples houses, because no one had the money to keep the church going so they sold it and gave the money to a charity and so now we have it at our house and the Darves's place.

but I thought it was a good ideal because four families had to leave due to the lay offs, so the children had to start texting and making long distance phone calls which because of the extra money involved in that we had to tell them to stop i think it must have broke their hearts to be told that they couldn't talk to their friends anymore, but i think we hadn't even gotten to the point things were really bad, and they only got worse that next month at the picnic that we went to when i completely collapsed on the grass and had to go to the hospital, where to my great sorrow i had to find on Marks and Luke's birthday, that I had a deadly Cancer that was spreading rapidly through my chest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day when my husband came into my room he didn't let me say a word, "you don't need to talk." he said he just told me that his boss said that he could have the day off work, so I didn't get to talk, then I watched him walk down the hall and into the next room, I heard him stop at the door trying to keep the children outside, and I could hear them saying "does mom really have cancer?-" "whats gonna happen to her?-" "is she gonna di-" the door slammed shut as Frank closed it behind them.

" oh god," I said to myself the children knew they knew all about it, or at least they must have been there when the doctor told me, frank was gonna take care of it, I had just thought that we were going to tell them together, it was hard enough that I wasn't going to get to see the Brigit lose her first tooth or any of that, it wasn't all that bad, because I will have to get over it, I knew that god was gonna help me through it, but still I knew that I was going to break, I didn't know why, or when, just that I was going to crack, and I didn't want to, because I didn't want to be one of those people who was a christian for better or for worst, and then broke under pressure.

But I wasn't as was worried about that though I really was, my husband is the kind of man to do everything himself, but their was no way he could be home 24 hours a day, with the kids and go to work at the same time, it would be to much for him he would be overworked and stressed and he would shut down, I needed to have a talk with him, and everyone else for that matter.

No one came in to the room for the rest of the day, the next morning I got up early, careful not to wake Frank up, and I started breakfast and I made a little something special for the younger members of our family, about an hour later I was done an it was 5:00 am and my husband was waking up, I thought it was because of the smell, but when he came into the room he walked to the stove and pulled out a frying pan then he put it down, then he looked up at the light as if there was something wrong with it when he turned around, he glanced at me and dropped the frying pan right on the floor, and grabbed his mouth, and gasped.

I couldn't help it my big strong man scared by his little wife sitting in the perfectly lit room, I just broke out laughing, it was just so funny to me, he laughed a little then picked up the frying pan that he dropped, of course at this point me and him had woke up the kids and they were all coming into the room.

As they came in they all stared at me when they came in the room, I tried to put a smile up at them but all that came out of it was that the smallest corner of my mouth pricked up, but that's all, they all must have known I was trying to smile because they all tried to smile up at me as well, they all sat around the table and frank pulled out the syrup for the pancakes that I had made.

Mark looked down at his plate and started to cry or at least I could see his tears landing on the smiley faced pancakes that I made for him and his brothers and little sisters, "what's wrong honey? is there something wrong with your pancakes?" I said as I got up to come around the table to talk to him, "No-" he sniffed and whipped it on his shirt sleeve, I gave him a napkin and he pushed it away, "Then what is it?" I leaned in closer, he blew his arm on his sleeve again and looked up at me then started up again, "it's just that, you made me my favorite breakfast-" I looked at him worried, "but why cry about that honey? you love smiley face pancakes." "It's just, when you die you won't make them anymore-" all of a sudden Ella jumped up and pointed a finger at him shaking, "You DON'T say that! you don't know that you little nose picker! you don't know anything!"

Frank was coming around the table at this point to straighten out Ella, but after she finished she broke out crying and plopped back into her seat, frank came around the table and picked up Ella then walked in to the next room, I let frank handle that one, "what do you mean 'when I die'? who said that i was going to die?" little mark looked up at me with stone cold eyes and started to cry again, "daddy did, he said that you were going to try to stay alive, but that-" he sniffed up a tear even tho their were so many going down his little face as it was, " he said that in the end that it wouldn't matter because you were gonna die anyway-" I couldn't believe frank would say something like that to his own children.

"And daddy never lies about stuff." I looked at him and tilted his head toward me, then I kissed him on the head and I looked down at his now untouched plate of cold pancakes, "well you better eat your food before ants come and carry it away," of corse Mark was right Frank didn't lie about things that mattered, I looked up to see Brigit, Hope and Luke staring at me sadly the only one who seemed untouched by the words that were just spoken was Brigit, who sat and ate her smashed yams like they were the only thing in the world.

And at this point I was so mad that I didn't know what to do with any of them, "you know what?" I said as nicely as I could, "not one of you has eaten go ahead eat up, I will be right back." I got up and left the room, walking into the living room wasn't the hard part , the hard part was going to be not screaming my lungs to the point of no return.

I looked for frank in the living room, he was coming down the stairs, my first instinct was to rush up those stairs and yell right into his face, but years of training have taught me not to do so, I waited for him to get down the stairs tapping my foot angrily, but the second he saw me and how mad I was he looked almost as if he would rather go back up the stairs then come down and face me, when he finally came down of his safety point I began with my usual words of annoyance. "why would you tell my children such a horrible thing? and it's a lie!" his face was shocked, sort of like only an hour ago, but this was not the same I wasn't laughing and it wasn't funny, "woah, woah, woah, what are you talking about? I just took her up stairs to tell her not to call her brother a nose picker, is that what your talking about?" I at this point didn't really care if he knew what I was talking about, " don't act like you don't know you told them that I was gonna die, that I didn't stand a chance! some people can take that kind of news, but not those kids! they aren't old enough to even understand what you were trying to say! what were you thinking?"

Frank stared at me almost as if to see if this was all real, I admit that I was going off the deep end, but to tell you the truth this was not the first time we had two different opinions about child raising, the first year we had Ella he wanted to try to make her use the toilet, teach her how to talk, to walk, it was awful she could barely crawl on the floor without tipping, after the twins he wanted to get them all into farm work, not that I thought it was a bad Ideal that he wanted them to be able to help out at a young age, it was just that he never said a word to me about it and we always got into fights about it, over the last two years he had stopped doing these things, he always talked to me about it and never just randomly did things, it was good it had almost made me forget about that side of him, but this? this was to much even for me to handle.

"Look I didn't know that I had to talk about this sort of thing with you, figured that I would handle it." he looked at me in his annoyance, I was just about ready to ready let him have it when he looked behind me, the second he did, I already knew what was going on.

"Mommy, Daddy when are you coming back to eat with us?" I look down at little hope looking at us from behind the kitchen door peeking out as if we were two monsters arguing over witch one we would eat first.

I looked at Frank and waited for him to say something, he didn't, of course he didn't, he wouldn't take care of this but he would take care of everything else, and act like he didn't need my help at all.

"Dear we'll be in in a minute, go back and eat your breakfast." I turned to see my husband walking toward our bedroom, I watched him get halfway down the hall before I went after him, just in time for him to shut the door, I was going to push the door open and yell at him for closing it in my face and walking away, but when I put my hand to the door to push it open I could hear, something, like a whimper.

I put my head to the door and listened, nothing, then again the sound, it was really painful sounding but I felt the need to find out what it was, I opened the door slowly and I stepped into the room I looked around to see frank sitting on the end of the bed, as I walked into the room, and frank looked over his shoulder, for all intents and purposes, I went into that room to yell at him, but when he turned his face around and I saw him, it was odd, I don't honestly think that I have ever seen him crying before, it was like I had ever seen this side of him, now I don't mean that I have never seen him soft, of course I had, after eight years of marriage I had seen him laugh, mad, cry, but never really cry not the kind of crying where he couldn't stop for anything.

He turned back around, and sniffed up a tear, then wiped a tear from his face, I walked over to him, I was honestly worried, I had no idea what he could be crying about, "Whats wrong? frank?" I tried to come around the bed and talk to him face to face, but it was obvious that wasn't going to happen.

"I'm fine, all that's wrong is that I've been married eight years and now I am going to be a widower, that is going to have to raise five children by myself, so yeah I'm-" he broke into more tears I couldn't stand it, "-no, no you won't be alone you won't be-" I tried to look him in the eyes, but he shot me a look cold and painful, "It's just, I'm supposed to take care of you, and now-"

"shhhhhhh, no, no." I said as I hugged him and sat down next to him and I started crying, "I'm supposed to take care of you, and I can't do anything to help you, how come it had to happen to you? couldn't it have been me?" I looked at him and wiped a tear from his face he wiped a tear from mine, and through the tears, that were flowing rapidly I managed to say what I had barely been able to believe this whole time.

"It's gonna be okay."