You Believe in God. I Believe in You

"Grandfather died a long time ago," Mama said, wiping off with tissues her young child's running gothic mascara.                    
"You didn't see him."                    
                   
"He's like you showed me. He talks to me sometimes from that rocking chair upstairs."                    
                   
"Hmmm... That is where he always sat, and he'd always yell, 'Stop it!'"                    
"Stop what Mama?                    
The way you and Dadda argue all the time?"                    
                   
Mama stared away.                    
...                    
...                    
                   
"Mama!"                    
                   
She stood up whistfully and walked the line.                    
...                    
                   
"Woman," Daddy hollered with his hands on Mama's arms, "I want to go to bed."                    
                   
Baby has her hands on her ears.                    
That's the way you hear the ocean.                    
Upstairs. Upstairs. Gonna see Grandpa.                    
He'll know what to do.                    
                   
"Grandpa, why don't you yell like Mommy said you used to?"                    
                   
Grandpa rocks in his chair and looks down.                    
"I've got a hearing aid now. All I have to do is tune it down to tune it out.                    
Try it child."                    
                   
"But I don't have a hearing aid," Baby raised her head up to her grand Papa.                    
                   
"Just put your fingers to your ears"                    
...                    
                   
His chair keeps on rocking.      
Baby goes to school        
and grows        
and falls in love.                    
                   
"Grandpa, I'm getting married today. Will you be there?                    
Ma and Pa aren't around anymore."                    
Pretty daughter pleads in her snow white dress and her long tanned brown hair.                    
                   
"I'm with you wherever, even if I'm not apparently there."                    
                   
"You're my best friend. I love you Grandpa.             
Hug me please!"                
She opens up her lonely chest.         
                   
"I still can't hug you, but close your eyes and you'll feel my warmth inside.                    
I am the Comforter, remember?"                    
                   
Reluctantly she closes her eyes, and she begins to smile.                    
...                    
                   
"I don't know what is wrong with me, Grandpa," she puzzles around the labyrinth of her mind.                    
"Every guy I meet is just like my father. What do I do?"                    
                   
Gruffly, "Listen to the ocean, child. You have the entire world inside you."                    
                   
But the beatings come, and Little Princess runs upstairs.                    
"Grandpa, Grandpa, help!" She tries to hold the door.                    
                   
Grandpa touched his ears and tuned down to tune out, and he watches the door hinges break.                    
The man stomps in and snatches Princess by the throat, but she tears away.                    
Darts to the foot of the rocker to not feel her Papa there though she can see him,          
hear him humming,                    
ignoring his adoptive daughter dragged across the floor,                    
her nails tearing out splinters.                    
                   
"Grandpa!"                    
Lower the dial.                    
                   
"This will make you strong. You will help many men and women, and you will find true love."                    
                   
"Grandpa! Yell!"                    
Carried on the back of a bear.                    
                   
"You might not see me anymore. You will move to a safer place.                    
I will just be in your soul."                    
Beauty comprehends words she can't comprehend while wreathing in pain across the space down even to the staircase bottom where she loses a tooth from the angry punch of a withering spirit.                    
                   
"Sometimes you have to suffer to be all you can be, Granddaughter.                    
Please feel my warmth inside though your nerves are icy cold."                    
Tears running down Grandpa's cheeks as he rolls on his hearing aid to complete Nirvana,                    
Jesus wept.