Waiting

Waiting

Is any thing too hard for the Lord?
Genesis 18:14

My father gave me a kite on my eighth birthday and said, "Wait until we go to Jones Beach to fly her."

We unrolled the paper dragon kite and followed the directions— taking care not to rip the paper nor break the balsa frame. My mother provided a piece of an old bed sheet to use as a tail. Regal. That dragon looked ready for flight

For two weeks she sat on a dresser in the room I shared with my grandmother. For two weeks the weather never cooperated. Then one day, a week day when my father was at work, the sun and breeze spoke to me. I took the dragon outside.

Our Bronx street sat wedged between buildings on both sides and alleyways.

I attached the string to the kite and ran down the street hoping that the dragon knew enough to fly straight up. I convinced myself that for this maiden voyage I'd fly her only as high as Mrs. Ryan's second floor window. After ten or more times of running up and down the street my friend Annie came outside. Now the two of us took turns running back and forth. Then a breeze caught the kite and she flew—sideways until she tangled with a fire escape and twisted around a stair.

My grandmother knocked on the neighbor's door and retrieved the kite. It never flew. My father never said anything about my not waiting. We repaired the kite and it hung on the wall for the next five years—without the tail.

Later on I learned to wait—for test results, for doctor's results, for things I couldn't change or move or hurry along. I waited in waiting rooms when my father was diagnosed with lung cancer.

I waited in line for gas during the fuel shortage.

Sometimes I think that the Lord is teaching me patience. How can it be that there are things you wait for and nothing budges? You see no movement. Yet, you still wait.

Someday I'm going to pick up the phone and hear a voice I haven't heard in over thirty years. We'll talk as if time collapses upon itself. In time we'll sit down for a dish of ratatouille and release old words. We'll replace those words with new words. A fresh lexicon.

Until then I'll wait.