You need a Helping Hand

There is never a moment where I’m ungrateful. To live your life you have to love, and to love you need a helping hand.

First chapter of the Helping hand

Many stories start happy then go bad then get happy again.  Well mine is different. My life was different.  When I was little I would lie in my bed and think hard about why I deserved such odds. It’s as if god had forgotten we were there; just put us aside so he could write a happy ending for everyone else. I’m not saying I was unhappy, but I had nothing and my family had nothing. It’s just I wasn’t a very good writer and trust me our story was my homework.

  The sun crept through the night sky, peering behind trees and mountains.  Everywhere it went it left a small ray of light. It snuck through the thick forest and the mountains. It followed a little brown bear up to the top of a tree and gave light to the world. 

The thick swamps, the green forest, the fresh air, and our log cabin nestled in the woods.  My name is Annie Drolinger and I live in Wisconsin. When I was born Ma wanted to move to the city, but Pa had grown up in this house and did not intend to leave it.  So we stayed. We rebuilt the roof and wooded the floor. Even though the house looked different it was still the same, and it held millions of stories and untold secrets.

Pa loved the old house and the land and since I was the only child I got to help Pa in the fields. I loved the sun beating down on my back, the sweat dripping down my face, and taking a cold bath in the creek afterwards.  But my life wasn’t even close to perfect:  my family was poor.  I mean I didn’t even have decent shoes. The people in the city did so why couldn’t I?  But no matter what, I loved Wisconsin and the rolling hills, thick forests, and the freedom.

But more than Wisconsin I loved stories.  I loved the good old tails of heroes and treasures, and boy did my Pa liked to tell them. My favorite is about Christopher Columbus, but Pa had his own twist. When Columbus came to America he left something, a treasure full of money and maps and all adventure stuff.  Many people have tried to find it but it’s stays hidden to this day. He says it’s here in Madison and when I was little I would ask him every day “Can we go out looking for Christopher Columbus’s treasure?” Pa would giggle and shake his head and say that he had to open shop or leave early.

But I knew it was out there because Pa told the story with such excitement he made me believe it. I would get so caught up in finding the treasure that I had to remind myself that it was just a story. As I got older the log cabin wasn’t big enough for all of us, evens stories didn’t calm me I felt like something bad was coming. 

I didn’t eat or sleep, I would lie in my bed for hours listening to a horned owl waiting for it to stop, but it never did. Each day our money box grew lighter, each day weighing less. Until one day it was empty. 

All of this fell through my mind like a flood. My stomach curled and I got up out of bed, and walked to the kitchen. I grabbed a glass of milk and sat down by the fire. The whispers of the city tiptoed through my house and it began to open my mind to a million different thoughts. The story of my life was unraveling.

Last snowfall

At the first snow fall

New hopes are born

Trees are up 

Wrapping paper is torn

You write a letter to that old Santa Clause

And hope for a bear with fuzzy paws

So many happy faces

And boxes covered in laces

All the lights

And a Christmas tree so tall

At the first snow fall