Chapter 18: A SACRED PROMISE
God's Little Drop of Water
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Not long after the evening on which Taliya demonstrated that she was mature enough to be the babysitter, Ima and Abba announced that they were flying to Europe for three weeks.
Taliya and her brothers were very excited.
Until they were informed that they would be staying home while Ima & Abba made the trip. Taliya was sent to stay with Ima’s sister Ariella, Yair was sent to stay with Ima’s brother Ron, and Yaroni was sent to stay with Abba’s mother and father in Netanya.
Taliya did not care for this.
While she was pleased that Ima and Abba would be able to enjoy a wonderful trip abroad, (they both certainly deserved it), and she knew she would have a grand time living at her cousins’ house for three weeks, she was still concerned. She was worried about her brothers, for one thing, and about her parents making such a long journey for another.
The day of her parents’ vacation arrived, and the children were sent on their way. Throughout the entire thirty-minute trip to her aunt and uncle’s house, Taliya began contemplating methods of contacting her parents on a daily basis. This proved pointless, as the only way to speak to her parents was to wait for them to telephone her aunt, something they did with a regularity too infrequent for Taliya’s liking.
Still, Taliya did enjoy herself at her aunt and uncle’s house, spending time with her cousins. They watched television a great deal, and, just as at home, their color-television had a switch which required that a person got up from where they were seated, went to the television, and switched the black-and-white picture back to color. Taliya’s uncle informed everyone that he had read just recently in the newspaper that the programming was being created in color, but due to many labyrinthine bureaucratic and business-related assumptions, the picture was being scrambled back into black-and-white. After having to go to the television every few minutes to flip the switch, he was confident that the whole of the country would be demanding color programming very soon.
Taliya’s aunt and uncle did their best to keep the children entertained, and Taliya enjoyed sharing a bedroom with her cousins. There were two sets of bunk beds, and Taliya was given a top bunk on which to sleep. She enjoyed her time with her extended family, despite being worried about how her brothers were doing. She wished once more that all five of them could’ve made the trip to Europe. She would have liked very much to see the famed European cities her parents were visiting now. London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona… Surely each city had a great quantity of chocolate to explore.
As Taliya lay quietly in the near-dark of her cousins’ bedroom, nestled atop the upper bunk, she began to miss her family more and more, until soon she was very nearly close to tears for her desire to be reunited with them.
Taliya therefore began at once to speak to God in Heaven above, something she did quite often. Taliya told God that she would make a deal with Him: if he agreed to bring her parents home safely and soundly from abroad, and brought her and her brothers home as well, so that their family were reunited once more very soon, she would make a sacred promise to be a good girl from this day forward. She would be a good girl at school and would do her very best to listen to every word her teacher had to say, and never again would she escape from class while pretending to sharpen her pencil.
Furthermore, Taliya agreed to do anything God asked of her, praying He brought everyone safely home.
♦♦♦
Many days later, after what Taliya perceived as an eternity, she was reunited with her family. Her parents came around to collect her on their way home from the airport, and after a short while, they had collected Yair and Yaroni as well.
That night, after everyone was in bed for the evening and Taliya had made certain to perform a final inspection of the doors and windows, she went quickly to her brothers’ bedroom, kissed each of them goodnight, and then tiptoed into her parents’ bedroom and kissed them goodnight as well. The fact that each of her brothers and both of her parents were already fast asleep mattered little. Taliya was grateful beyond words that everyone was together once more.
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