Redemption Read Online Free PDF

1970s-style cursive script that reminds me of Charlie’s Angels . For long stretches of time, I haven’t looked at the pictures. Sometimes I want to walk down memory lane, and sometimes I want to run away from it. Whether I look at the album or not, I keep it with me now that I’m out.
    Like me, it’s getting old. Some of the photos are crooked and loose because the sticky backing is worn out. Some of the plastic coverings are bent, scratched, or torn. I like them this way.
    On days I decide to open the album, I can’t help but wonder what might have happened to that blue-eyed baby—me—if things had been different. There were so many twists and turns as I grew up. What if, just one time, something bad that happened had been something good instead? Were there different options for my future? Could I have been an athlete for a college track team? That would have been fun. Maybe I would have become an English teacher. Would I have had a family? I could’ve had two kids, maybe four, by now. I’ll never know.
    I can’t help but be wistful. Being wishful is a lot better than being angry about circumstances I cannot change. Acceptance isn’t easy, but it’s the only way. Thank God I was a happy baby, and I didn’t have to wish for anything then.
    I was a peanut of a kid. In one photo, I’m wearing a purple, ironed shirtdress decorated with duckies and lace around the edges. I’m so young that I must be propped up by a hidden hand or pillow. I’m wearing white patent leather shoes over thick, warm baby tights and have a great big smile. A baby’s face can’t lie. I look at the picture and see all the love and joy I felt. My chubby cheeks are filled with happiness, and I’m sure they were kissed often. It’s almost like I remember it, and I can cling to the memory and feel it. But of course, I was only six months old. I’m just guessing.
    During those years, in the early 1970s we lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My mom loved being a mother. She carried me with her everywhere. I was bald except for a white-blond ring right on the top of my head. She’d brush it up and keep me in a kewpie curl, always. She gave up only when at age one I finally grew golden hair. It flew away from my head in soft, opinionated wisps. In one picture of me at eight months or so, she looks like she’s dancing with me in our house in Iowa. My momma smiled wide as she carried me with her left arm, her right hand holding mine. Her long, straight blond hair matched the strands in my kewpie curl. The shade of our skin—pale and golden all at once—was exactly the same. Our smiles were similar, but the corners of my mouth turned down just slightly—a trait I inherited from Grandma Lannert. Our clothes also matched. She wore a blue dress with red and white dots. My pressed cotton outfit was patchwork-blue with white dots and yellow trim. She used to sew many of my clothes herself, and probably these outfits, too.
    Maybe taken on the same day, there’s another picture of me in that same patchwork dress. My dad looked so young and gentle as he held me out in front of him by my armpits. My hands waved out in the air, flapping in giggles. My smile, once again, was so much like my mom’s. His expression was soft, and he looked like he might be melting. He had brown hair that was parted on the right side and combed neatly. His skin was perfect—smooth and healthy. His eyes were as blue as the ocean; they were clean and calm like a quiet lagoon. I can tell he was sober. I loved him when he looked like that—when he was so crystal clear.
    My father hadn’t been big on having kids, but he changed his mind once I came home from the hospital. He was proud of his baby. As far back as I can remember, he could hardly put me down when he got home from work.
    I was his Little Kewpie. That’s what they called me for my first few years.
    Grandma Lannert also doted on me. I was her first grandchild, and she bought me more baby clothes than one kid could