The Bet

“Were you excited when you found out that you were going to have me?” 17-year-old Jennifer Blake quiz her mother.

“Well,” her mother Pansy Hillburn pauses, swaying her head shoulder to shoulder, slowly slipping back to that moment in her life. Wrestling with the decision to give victory to lie or to the truth. The truth won, and she revealed, “I kinda lost a bet.”

“You did what!” Jennifer screams. “You lost a bet? That’s what I am to you, a bet you lost?”

“I am sorry, I was young and unprepared,” she apologized.

Jennifer fumes, then release, “I am an only child, so I guess you won all the other bets?”

“I said I was sorry,” her mother repeats.

“Who won the bet that bought me here?”

“Your father.”

“Let me get this straight. You lost the bet, but you end up with a prize you didn’t want?” Jennifer screams in anger.

“I stayed. Your father didn’t!” her mother asserts.

Her relationship with her mother crashed that day.

To escape the disappointment and pain, Jennifer chose an out-of-state college more than two hundred miles away from home after receiving her scholarship. She moved into their dormitory. After acquiring her master’s degree in Education, she accepted a teaching position at Middletown Elementary School in the adjoining town. She hasn’t seen or spoken to her mother in more than ten years. Mother’s Day was painful for her.

Every Mother’s Day, she would send her mother a card, a money order enclosed, with no return address. Over the years, her mother cashed none of the money orders she received from her only child.

Nine-year-old Molly Stewart was a bright and well-mannered child who often came to school looking like she lived in a garbage truck—sometimes smelling just as bad. The children would tease her, and she would often cry or sit at the back of the class in the corner. Jennifer became her protector.

Jennifer called in her mother and learned she was a single mother struggling to feed her only child. After that, Jennifer made sure Molly came to school looking how a child should look. When Molly needed a coat, Jennifer started a coat drive—collecting coats and new clothes for her and other children in the school and the surrounding community. Molly needs school supplies; Jennifer reaches out to the businesses in the community, and they donated lots of school supplies. Molly was a happy child now.

Two days before Mother’s Day, Jennifer was passing the girl’s bathroom and heard a familiar voice said, “You can’t put that in the card.”

“What can’t she put in a card?”

That’s Sara’s voice, Jennifer thought, stopping to listen.

“She is making a Mother’s Day card for Miss Blake, and she wants to put in it that ‘I am glad you were born.’ You can’t put that in a card.” Paula’s voice, Jennifer identified.

“But I am glad,” Molly defends her decision.

“Miss Blake is nice to all of us,” Sara agreed. “I am glad she was born too. If her mother didn’t give birth to her, she wouldn’t be here to help us. And I am glad her mother was born too. I got a new coat, shoes, clothes, and school supplies thanks to her.”

Jennifer couldn’t stop the tears as the words her mother told her more than ten years ago battered her. She hurries inside the teacher’s bathroom and cried long-overdue tears. A few moments before the dismissal bell rang, the children gave her their cards. Lots of thanks and hugs later, she sat in her car, sadness hugging her as she read Molly’s card.

It said, “Dear Miss Blake, I may not be your daughter, but I think of you as my mother. You gave other children and me the kind of love a mother gives her children. I am glad you were born. Love Molly.” Happy Mother’s Day Mom.”

Jennifer arrived at her destination four and a half hours later. The Sun was slowly going down as she parked in front of her mother’s home. Miss Hillburn was sitting on her porch. Her eyes lit up when she saw her daughter heading towards her. She jumped up and met her halfway. As they embrace each other both in tears, Jennifer said, “Oh Mama, I am glad you lost that bet.”

Minutes later, they sat down in the kitchen sipping Turmeric ginger tea.

Miss Hillburn gazed into her daughter’s eyes while easing back into the past, “I was sixteen when I gave birth to you,” she pauses as if her overdue trip into the truth of her past was painful. “I lost a bet to your father, and that’s how you were born. I may have lost the bet, but I won the prize.”

When we give our life meaning and a purpose, life will add its own value to our lives.

They say, ‘children say the darndest things.’ Their innocence and ability to love unconditionally give them the power to heal adults in the simplest and most thoughtful ways. Children have the power to reach inside our hearts and empower change. Open your heart and let them in.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hoped you enjoyed it.