Adena M'lynn's Voice

For the Families Who Face the Holidays with Empty Arms  (In remembrance of those lost in the Hill Country flood. God be near.) This is for the families whose holidays will look different this year—for the stockings that will stay folded, the chairs that won’t be filled, the laughter that once lived where silence now stands guard. This is for every mother who still listens for small footsteps in her dreams, for fathers who trace names on fogged windows of memory, for brothers and sisters who carry two hearts inside one chest. And this—this is for  Adeline , who stands now as the name for every child lost too soon. “Adeline” written by Adena M’lynn  She was small enough to still believe that goodness always wins, that summer meant campfires, and songs, and sun-warmed freckles on her skin. A folded pamphlet in her hand— Hill Country Christian Camp — her golden ticket to belonging. She saved her half— earned with soap, dust, and babysitting money— a jar full of hope clinking ...

She stands at the edge of something unnamed, A silence so loud it swallows her name. One hand holds a check— numbers scrawled like prophecy, Enough to help… or seal her fate. The other, a gun—cold, certain, direct, No legal fees. No chance to reflect. The voices, relentless, curl close to her ear, “Just do it,” they whisper, feeding her fear. They don’t say which— Click or ink. Bang or bank. They just want silence and don’t care who to thank. She does the math, A debt that never sleeps, She’s worth more dead,  Living cost more than she’s worth Hope is a rumor, Help’s just a ghost, And faith—well, it costs what she doesn’t have most. She pictures two possibilities — and neither is life.  One gets a funeral, the other a number. She breathes like a woman learning how to drown, while standing on solid ground. Then— one hand lowers. She prays one more time. Because not all choices end in a switch. Sometimes she wants life. Sometimes she wants death. Sometimes she just wants to disa...