Unexpected Friend

The busy of life, can in it's self create conditions that can leave us busted and disgusted, without hope and thus callous almost suddenly and the silence that creeps ever after can steal what smile is left. Many of us find friends few and far between especially when the need for such, in the heat and heart of our busy makes for the bitter in our tears when all goes bust. Only our sad accounts of how much of a friend we have been, seems to make our disgusted feelings,  fore go any hope in humanity, thus the callous shell over laying our outward expressions to other, seem all too sudden. Only the silence from the empty inside, embraces the coolness on the outside.
     Carol, not unlike so many women, became a single parent, when her husband was lead away in chains for a crime he may or may not have committed. And while she has to keep up with the extra burdens now pressing upon her, it seems her own needs as a human, has to come second place at life's demands. Without warning, choices makes charters for obstacle courses that make derailing not only possible, but inevitable.  The unwritten code states that every men or woman for themselves and God for us all, but in effect, only the strongest survive, yet history is dotted with examples of people who made it to the top with a little more then help. Yet to hear them tell it, they made it with but share grit.
     Women are nurturers by nature, and the kids always seem to take first priority in their lives. But it does not take long before the rent and prison visits take their own toll, with music lessons and the PTA with separate list of demands.  And since Teachers deal with their students based on the amount of activity in feed back from parents, it don't take long before grades reflect these facts. Silent tears, may release tension, but stress demands more before it will let go or let up. A woman void of love and affection, nurture or listening ears will surely come to the bend in the road, where straight was not possible and the bend inevitable.
     The wise saying that it takes a Village to raise a child, is more then a foregone conclusion. And to be a friend and not expect someone to lean hard on that friendship is irresponsible and childish. Yet the world over, shows records of people dropping friendships like hot potatoes, only to try and pick up the friendship after the potato cools off. The look of pathetic disgust at fare weathered friends, is only equal to the tears shed on account of them when they were needed the most. It is these and similar experiences that erode the shore line of hope, and plunge many souls into the deep of despair.  While it is true, you cant raise a spirited dog and expect someone else to watch it and feed it when you are away, so too, some parents raise children in such a way, it makes it hard for friends to offer help or step in and help. Notwithstanding, there is no easy out when in fact dogs are one thing, children another.
     The feeling of hopelessness can come in like an over whelming flood behind a missing husband compounded by children who have been swept away in the tide of the forgotten. Not that a mother ever forgets her children, but life's demands can put such a strain on them, that when friends go missing, and real needs go unanswered, failure can come into view, bringing with it hopeless despair. Friendships that by pass shared responsibility, are luxuries people engage in to their shame. Many hospitals are filled with people, whose minds have created a reality more conducive to plights they otherwise would have handled, if friends measured up. And only if friends would be more then drinking buddies, party goers, and brought support more so then cocktails, hope would have sprung eternal. Atlas, a callous look, steals the smile, where optimist burnt her flame.
     From the pavilion of the callous comes road rage, and every hostility. What normal people would not do, under stress and strain, they do freely and willingly as if push or prodded on by an unseen hand. Despair has nothing to do with the selection of perfume, or the taste of the dress and shoes. But somewhere in the center of all decisions,  what use to be care and careful, now gives way to why not for who really cares. No one has that ability to see the spark of life disappear from  friends they see from far way not involving themselves beyond luxury. This same callous seed planted, only comes back, when life turns on them and they need a friend to answer life's calls and demands they themselves have no answer for. But despair has it's own seeds it plants in a darkness so deep, not even harden criminals could have suspected. Like a freak in nature, out from the maze of ugly, can come the purest good, and it is during these times, we get to see just how awesome God really is.
     Suddenly and without warning, the neighborhood slut,  or the use to be pimp mac daddy, spun out on alcohol, finds favor and in return, steps in and up to the plate with help beyond measure.  Carol now gets help for her kids from a slut who no one else finds favor in, and because life has a way of making demands, she has to take help where it comes, and with choices come seed for redemption, and while one helps the other, both find solace in the commitment to help. Pimp, has an understanding of prison life, and gives her a heads up on the in's and out's and now she is one step to pulling together her connection with her husband, and from her controlled visits, now she is able to receive the attention all women and mothers need to bring back the nurture they are well known for. Seeing that he cant drink and drive, pimp mac daddy has to give up his drinking for the greater good, and does so, as if all that was needed was a worth while purpose. Because slutty friend knows the workings of the street, there is little children can pull over her, so she is a workable eye while Mom gets to hit the PTA, and thus without fail, grades approach normal and above average. It seems that even a slut can bring value where all about her held her in suspect, and a drunk pimp has been, can find reward in well meaning out put from experience that a woman stuck in her callous disgust  may need to bring her back to where smiles live.
     While at work, the phone rang, and while the children were hard at homework, over seen by an unsuspected friend, who happened to pick it up. It was a collect call from the prison. This call was often made when Carol was away, and for the first time it now was answered, and because the baby sitter was a street personal, she knew all too well what a phone call from prison was like so she accepted the call, and allowed a teary eyed husband give his spill both of thanks and instructions. Carol came home with a little more bounce in her hair, and flavor in her step, so much so when she came in the door of her own home, she did not notice a smile on the baby sitter's face that was more then usual. Before long there was a scream through the house that rang clear cross the neighborhood. Before long pimp daddy was knocking on the door, as if he was both the fireman and police wrapped in one. Turned out, that her husband was being released, for they indeed had the wrong man, and pimp daddy had one more trip to make to make this house a home. When all was said and done, and silence came creeping over Carol's home, it gave pause, and smiles were everywhere, and why, for the unsuspected friends that come even at odd times, come from their own blackened lives, as seeds in waiting for their time and place...nj