Julie

Mom said it would help, and I believed her. I don't know why. Nothing she ever said was true. Well, that's not true. She was right about the fact that I would get over it. She just left out the part that it would take forty years. ###
When she brought it home from the flee market, she held it up. "I thought of you when I saw this," she said. "You know why?" ###
"No." ###
"Because it will remind you that everything will be fine." ###
At ten, I was too young to form my questions into words. "What is everything?" "When will it be fine?" ###
"See," she said, "if you look at the eye on this end, it's a grasshopper. If you look at the eye on the other end, it's a rabbit. And there you have it. What do rabbits and grasshoppers both do?" ###
She didn't give me time to answer. "They hop," she said. "Hopping is the answer." ###
"The answer to what, Mom?" ###
"The answer to whatever makes you sad, Sweetheart. Whenever you're unhappy, hop. That's what I'm doing. I can't live with your father any longer. We're not happy. So you and I are hopping to a new family." ###
"But I don't want to hop, Mom. I'm happy with Dad." ###
"You only think you're happy because you don't know what real happiness is. You'll see." ###
I waited to see. I wanted to see. But I never did see. Nothing was fine, but I couldn't hop. I was stuck with Mom and a new family who didn't like me and a school where I had no friends. Hopping continued to work for Mom though. She hopped again after I graduated from high school. This time, however, I didn't have to hop with her. I hopped to college instead. For a while I began to think that maybe Mom was right. Everything was better when I started my own hopping. When my roommate nagged me for being a slob, I hopped to another dorm. When I failed economics, I hopped to another college. I continued hop, hop, hopping. For the next 30 years I hopped from job to job, relationship to relationship. ###
After my 50th birthday, I was feeling the need for a change. My marriage was boring at best. My youngest daughter was starting college, so it seemed like a good time. While she was packing she went up to the attic for suitcases and came down with this funny looking wooden object. "What's this, Dad?" ###
I took the object from her and turned it around. "Well," I said, "it's a long story, but your grandmother gave it to me just before she divorced your grandfather. She told me it would remind me that everything would be fine." ###
"Was it?" ###
"No," I said. "It wasn't. And seeing this again reminds me of how wrong she was. Here, why don't you take it with you. See, if you look at the eye on this end, it's a grasshopper. If you look at the eye on the other end, it's a rabbit. And what do rabbits and grasshoppers both do? They hop. I want you to have this to remind you that hopping is not the answer." ###