"RIBBONS OF HOPE"

By BaddTeddy

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Forty years has it really been forty long years? It was time for the Ribbon Lady to get up, although she didn't want to. She just wanted to lay in bed and bury her head in the pillows, to hide her body under the covers, and to hide from the pain that reality would bring, to avoid thinking, to escape. But reality and the pain arrived with the morning sunshine as they always did, and her first thoughts, as always, were for her daughter, who had disappeared forty years ago today.

The tears for her little girl threatened to run down her cheeks again, even after forty years, and never once had she awakened to anything other than thoughts of love for her missing daughter, and the pain and anguish of not knowing where she was.

The Ribbon Lady threw off the cover, rose from her bed and dressed. She thought of how this would be her last day living in their home. This was the home where her husband had died at such a young age, even before their daughter was born, and the home from which her daughter had disappeared. Today was the last time she would ever see her home from the inside. The money had run out, there was nothing left. This had been the home she had fought to save, but with her failing health due to a broken heart, she did not have much fight left in her. Today would probably be her last day being called the Ribbon Lady, the Scarecrow. After today, people would probably start referring to her as the Bag Lady, once the bank threw her out of her own home.

Amazing! She had never hurt anyone, but the whole world seemed out to get her. All she had ever wanted was a family, a husband and a child to love. But now he had passed away, and her daughter was probably lost forever. Why couldn't she just give up and start over? Why couldn't she accept that her daughter was gone? Why couldn't she start over and start a new family? Was she really crazy like everyone seemed to think? Well, it no longer mattered, life was just what it was, and so she did what she did every day; she got up and faced the day.

Today she would be packing her bags and moving out into the streets. Maybe she could afford a few nights at the local inn, but soon even that would be beyond her means. She worked, but forty years of emotional pain had sapped her strength, and her body was worn out. Besides, who wanted to employ the crazy woman, the Ribbon Lady?

She stopped herself. She had to compose herself. Today there was one more chance to find her daughter. Even after forty years she refused to give up. She knew she was crazy, everyone else did, but that didn't stop her from hoping.

On this day, a big time reporter from the other side of the country was coming. Somehow, after all these years, her begging and pleading with the local newspaper had managed to catch a glimmer of attention from one last reporter. She knew they didn't think there was a chance she would find her daughter. They were only covering the story because the legend of the Ribbon Lady made for good small talk, a funny human-interest story about a crazy woman who was soon to be homeless. She packed her bags and set them by the front door. When the sun set one last time, she would walk home to get her bags and move out into the streets. But she couldn't dwell on that now, she had ribbons to hang.

The Ribbon Lady gathered up a handful of yellow, pink and blue ribbons, as she had for the past forty years, and walked out the door. She walked eastward towards the town, enjoying the feeling of hope that the sun gave her as it rose in the sky. Even after all this time, as crazy as it seemed, her hopes rose with the sun. Would it be today? She tied the yellow, pink and blue ribbons to telephone poles, trees and mailboxes. She tied ribbons to anything and everything. People watched her as she walked down the street. When she turned to look at them, they looked away. No one had looked her in the eyes in many, many years. For most, it was because they thought she was crazy, and maybe they were even a little afraid of her. For others, it was the shame they felt for not helping. And for a few, those that still remembered, it was out of sorrow. They knew her pain, but they had given up hope long ago.

She had almost covered the east side of town when she realized what time it was. The reporter was supposed to meet her at noon in the park. She had to hurry or she might be too late. She still couldn't believe her luck, a reporter! What had it been since a reporter took interest in her story, five years, ten, twenty or more? After all, who in the world was crazy enough to keep looking for a child who had been missing forty years? What reporter would want to cover it? Well, the most important thing was that the reporter was meeting her. They were going to do the story of her forty-year search for her daughter, and maybe somewhere, her little girl, or rather her daughter, who was now in her forties, if she was still alive, might see the ribbons and remember. She collected her thoughts, then ran all the way to the park with ribbons trailing like a kite's tail behind her.

Arriving at the park slightly after noon, she thought, "Oh, please don't let the reporter have come and gone." The man who ran the local paper had promised her that the reporter would arrive at exactly noon to do her story. When she saw no one that looked like a reporter, she began to cry. "No, I can't cry. I have to do everything I can to help my little girl, and crying won't help". She picked up her roll of ribbons, trying to think if it was her last roll. How would she buy ribbons when the last of the money from her final paycheck at the bakery ran out? She wasn't even worried about a roof over her head anymore. What would she do if she couldn't buy any more ribbons? Well, no time for that now. She might as well put some ribbons up while she waited for the reporter. So there she stood, tying yellow, pink and blue ribbons around the trees in the city's park, as she had tied how many ribbons in the past? Was it thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions? Each time she would ask herself if it would be the last. Each time she knew there would be one more ribbon to tie. "Excuse me." "What?" She had been daydreaming, but as she turned around, she found a woman standing there. Could this be the reporter? She must have looked really strange standing there with her hands full of ribbons and that blank look on her face. This wasn't good, what if the reporter left?

The reporter, perhaps a little flustered, asked again, "Excuse me, I wanted to ask you..." Having dealt with dozens of reporters in the past, she put her guard up. She felt herself drifting again. Darn! She was going to blow it. The reporter was going to think her crazy, say something polite and walk away, taking with her the last chance to find her daughter. The Ribbon Lady regained her composure and as she had so many times in the past, said to the reporter, "You wanted to ask why I am hanging the ribbons, didn't you? You wanted to hear my story." Seeing a look of confusion on the reporter's face, she decided she'd better dive right into her story or she was going to lose her chance to tell it.

"It happened forty years ago, when my daughter disappeared while I was asleep. Someone came into my home and took her. I have been searching for her for over forty years." She was jumping forward too fast, she needed to slow down and tell the story from beginning to end, in a manner in which the reporter could digest it and tell it to the world. Give her this one last chance to help, she thought to herself, and stopped to ask, "Please young lady, will you give me a chance to tell you my whole story?"

"Well," the reporter began to say, " I wanted to, but..."

"Please," the Ribbon Lady again begged of her.

"All right," the reporter answered. "Please continue."

So, they sat on a park bench in the shade of big tree, while Ribbon Lady told her story to young reporter.

"When I was young, I wanted more than anything to marry a nice man and have a daughter, and I almost got my wish. I did marry a very wonderful man, but he died shortly after we were married. A few months later, our daughter was born. She was a beautiful baby. Her eyes glowed with happiness. Nothing in my life felt as good as holding her in my arms, and having her look into my eyes and smile."

"I used to spend hours just telling her stories, making faces at her while she would make faces at me. I loved her and she loved me, and then, someone stole her in the middle of the night, stole her right out of our home while I slept, and I have never seen her since."

At this point, the reporter started to say something, but the Ribbon Lady stopped her. "Please, Miss, even after all these years this is very hard for me. Please, let me finish." The reporter sat back to let her continue with her story.

"I tried to find my daughter. The story was in all the local papers. The police searched, but they couldn't find her. No one had any clues. We put up posters of her all over town and in the surrounding cities, but no one had seen her. Finally, after the townspeople, the police and the reporters had given up, I hired a detective. After searching for a year, the detective came up with one possibility. It seemed that a woman with a strange obsession for baby dolls had escaped from an asylum upstate a few weeks before my daughter had disappeared. Once again, the media jumped on it. Maybe the woman who had escaped the asylum wanted to have a daughter, which explained her obsession with dolls. Maybe she had taken my daughter to have as her own. Maybe my daughter was alive, and so the search began all over again. This time, they placed posters of the woman from the asylum up alongside my daughter's picture. The people here in town helped. The people in the surrounding towns helped. The police helped. Even the national media ran a story on it for a few days. But no one found her, not until a year later when the insane woman who had escaped the asylum was found dead in an alleyway."

"There were no signs of my daughter. She had simply vanished without a trace and everyone had given up, everyone but me. I never gave up hope of finding my daughter, except sometimes for a few hours. In those few hours, I cried and screamed, even went a little crazy. But the next day I would wake up and decide that I had to keep trying again that day. My daughter needed me. Every day I asked myself, how I could find her. What clues were there to help me, what else could I do to find her? My daughter had only learned a few words before she was taken. She would not know my name. She would not know how to find me. Within a short time she might even have forgotten what I looked like. It was then that I thought of the ribbons."

"When my daughter was just a baby, I had hung ribbons above where she slept. There were yellow, pink and blue ribbons, resembling a rainbow. They hung from a mobile above her crib, waving around with even the slightest breeze. She loved them. I had hung them just beyond her reach. She would spend hours each day staring at them, fascinated by the way they moved with the breeze, always reaching up with her little hands to try and touch them." The Ribbon Lady began to sob, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cry, even after all these years. Well, never mind, I will continue my story."

"After my daughter disappeared, and everyone else had given up hope of being able to find her, I tried to think of a way to help her find me. That's when I thought of the ribbons. I ran to her room, which I had left exactly the same way as when she had disappeared, except for one thing that I noticed was missing from her room, the ribbons! I didn't know if the kidnapper had taken them, and if so, why he or she would have. I didn't know if my daughter had grabbed them when she was taken, but I realized that these ribbons were the key to helping my daughter locate me. She had spent so many hours playing with those ribbons. I used to hold them in my hand raising and lowering them, and she would try to grab them as I pulled them away. If there was one thing my little girl would remember, it would be the ribbons."

"That's when I began putting up yellow, pink and blue ribbons all over town. At first, the townspeople helped me put up thousands of ribbons. I don't think they ever believed that the ribbons would help, but they were trying to do "something" to help. Once again, the local newspapers told the story of my search for my little girl. They even gave a name to the little ribbons I was hanging all over the city. They called them "Ribbons Of Hope". The townspeople started whispering behind my back, calling me the Ribbon Lady. Everyone eventually gave up again, this time forever. But I never really did give up. I knew my daughter was not old enough to look for me, and it might be years before she could begin to search. She might not even begin until she was an adult. But, when and if she did begin her search for me, I hoped she would see the ribbons and know she had found me. The ribbons became my only hope of ever seeing my daughter again."

"Please don't cry, young lady. I know this story is painful but let me finish. No, please do not interrupt. I haven't told this story to anyone in more years than I can remember, and it's important for me to finish it now."

"So, where was I? Oh yes, the ribbons, the Ribbons of Hope. I began to hang them every Sunday. Sometimes I hung them here in town, sometimes in other towns. Occasionally, I even drove to other states to hang them. I became somewhat of a local legend."

"At first, people thought it was sad. But as time passed, people moved away, others moved in, children grew up and the world changed. They all knew there was a Ribbon Lady who tied yellow, pink and blue ribbons to trees and telephone poles every Sunday, but they forgot why she tied them there. The legend became that I was a crazy old lady. The fact that I lost forty pounds made it worse. I became the scarecrow that you see before you today. My health began to fail, and it became a struggle to continue. But when the weather allowed me, I never missed putting up ribbons on a Sunday."

"Now, forty years have passed and the townspeople think I am crazy. I have become so sad that my health is failing and I find it hard to work. Today, I will become homeless. But as long as I live, every Sunday, I will put up ribbons for my daughter. I'm not crazy, I just love my daughter."

"Young lady, why are you crying? You are a reporter, and I'm sure you have heard many more painful stories than mine. Why are you looking at me like that? Why are you crying this way? I can barely understand a word you are saying. You're not the reporter? Then why have you been sitting here listening to me? The little wooden box, you want me to look inside the little wooden box? Why? Yes, I'll look inside the box."

"What is this? Ribbons? I don't understand. Why are you carrying this box with the ribbons in it? I can barely make out your words. What is it you are saying? I love you mother? Mother, mommy, mother?"

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

Never give up hope!