Second Chance

Forty-five-year-old Pamela Hall had a lousy temper. Keeping a job was always a problem for her. Her friends would often tease, “Thank God you have no children, or you would be in jail every day.”

Running out of options, Pamela took a job as a babysitter to Madison Henson. A hyperactive two-year-old. Saturday morning Pamela’s cellphone rings. Glancing at it, recognizing the number, she said to herself, “I told her I don’t work on the weekend,” ignoring the call.

Hours later when she finished her chores, checking her phone, she notices that Mrs. Henson left a voicemail. Listening to it, she unconsciously eased back from the phone, because of the tone of her voice. Her instincts demand, “call her.”

She did, and Mrs. Joanna Henson answers shouting, “You babysit my daughter for one week and you have transformed her into Satan’s assistant!”

“How did I do that?” Pamela defends herself.

“Don’t you know that a two-year-old will imitate everything that you do and say!”

“Yikes!” Pamela said covering her mouth. “I am sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Please, don’t come back to my home!” Mrs. Henson said hanging up.

Immediately a brilliant idea pops into her head. She presses redial and it rang ten times, and no one answered. She grabs her other cellphone and dial, this time she answers.

“Please, don’t hang up on me,” Pamela begs.

“Ok,” Mrs. Henson said.

Pamela continues, “I am crazy for thinking this way, but please give me another chance to make it right. If I can’t reform my Maddy, you don’t have to pay me for the week, and I will disappear.”

“Well, . . .” she said thinking. “She does love you, and it will be impossible to get a babysitter on such short notice.”

Six months later Pamela's friends were shocked at her transformation.

“Ok,” they cornered her at their weekly Thursday evening dinner. “What is going on? You are calmer, kinder, more respectable and responsible, willing to obey the law, and this is too damn weird,” Patsy the loudmouth said.

Kara adds, “Yea, you are so proper, you are no fun anymore. What, the two-year-old convert you into one of Jesus’s disciples?”

Smiling she reveals, “I found out if you have problems with self-control, get a job as a babysitter for a two-year-old.”

“You are over forty years old and a two-year-old had to teach you self-control?”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it,” Pamela said sipping her white wine. “She imitates everything I say and do.” Then went on to tell them how amazing two-year-old Madison Henson is.

Meanwhile across town, Joanna Henson checks her checking account.

“Hm...” she said to herself, wondering why he didn’t cash the check she gave him. She calls him; he didn’t answer so she left a message.

Friday morning, Pamela came early, as Joanna was just getting up.

“Good morning,” she said letting her in wearing her robe. “I am sorry. You are early and I am late.”

Madison rushes and jumps into Pamela’s arms, as her mother heads out of the living room.

The ringing of a cellphone demands everyone’s attention.

“I think it’s mine,” Mrs. Henson said rushing upstairs.

Minutes later, she slowly walks down the stairs, as Pamela sat in the living room talking to Madison.

Mrs. Henson sat on the stairs watching them for a while until Madison said, “hi mom.”

Pamela stops and looks at her, trying to read her expression. She eases up and slowly walks towards them as if she was in a trance, then asks, “Do you know who I am?”

Pamela said, “Maddy’s mom?”

Mrs. Henson disrobes, spinning around as if she was on the runway in Paris, naked as a skinless chicken, saying, “You don’t know who I am?”

Pamela quickly covered Maddy’s eyes, then said, “I have done a lot of things in my life that God and the Bible forbids, but that isn’t one of them.”

Mrs. Henson quickly put her robe on and said, “My father died when I was 16 years old. Four years later my mom took ill and needed a blood transfusion. Her blood type was AB-negative, a rare blood type. I went in to donate blood for her, and they told me that my blood type didn’t match hers. And there was no way she could be my mother. That’s how I found out that I was adopted. She died eight months ago. I paid a private investigator to find my real mother. The check I sent him wasn’t cashed, so I left a message on his phone asking why.”

She took her cell phone from her robe pocket, search through her phone, press play and a male voice said, “I didn’t cash the cheque, because the lady you hired me to find is in your house taking care of your child!”

Pamela closes her eyes, as the past rushes in faster than a train out of control. But this time, she could stop it and she said, “I was raped by my mother’s husband when I was 13 years old. He threatened my life if I tell on him. It took her six months to find out that her only child was pregnant. And that was because I fainted at school. They had to perform an emergency C-Section on me. They said that there was a 30-70 % chance the child I was carrying would live. I didn’t get a chance to see you. I was told that it was a girl and I would never be able to have another child.”

Pamela fought herself and the tears, but she didn’t win this one. Joanna reaches out and hugs her saying, “My adopted parents were loving, kind, and forgiving people.” Easing away from Pamela, Joanna wipes her real mother’s tears away and said, “God brought me back to you. And my Maddy adores you.”

Pamela took her granddaughter up in her arms and the three of them hugs as happiness pushes the tears and sadness away.

Later Pamela said, “Thank you for your understanding.”

Joanna smiles and reveals, “My adoptive parents taught me that understanding will always open the door to forgiveness. And that second chances only come from our creator!”

This story came from a discussion about many women I know who gave birth to children and abandon them. I know many women who are mothers and refused to take responsibility for their children. But then they end up raising someone else’s child. Sometimes it’s their grandchild or their stepchild. It’s a pattern I see that has repeated itself many times in my country. And the men don’t escape it either.