Opening Day

Yesterday was opening day for the fall meet.

I've been coming here since I was a little girl. I remember "Breakfast with the Works" and bundling up against the cold October mornings. I don't ever remember staying for a race when I was younger. I don't remember the beer or the cigars. I just remember the sycamore tree and having my dad place $2 bets for me with his own money.

I took half a day off of work yesterday. Amazing how three hours of work will drag on and on when you are looking forward to leaving. It poured the rain yesterday morning. Everyone is happy... we need the rain. Being selfish, I wished it would stop. I had a special afternoon planned. Rain would just make it kind of soggy.

I brought my camera with me for the first time. Knowing how to take fast-action shots and utilize the lighting of the overhangs and tree branches. It's a good feeling to know what you're doing. It's a good feeling to capture an afternoon with a lens.

But this time it was a little bit different. I was old enough to place my own $2 bets (still, with my dad's money). I was enveloped by the smell of beer and cigars. I was acutely aware of the well-dressed men and women of wealth. I wondered if someone held a stamp at the front gate that read "Trust Fund" and impressed it upon these people's foreheads. They dripped with it... whatever "it" is. I can always tell how wealthy someone is by the sunglasses that they wear. (Just to give you a hint, most of them wore shades that cost more than my car.) I watched as people won and lost money. As a few particular individuals grew increasingly intoxicated. And I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I was not the thin, beautiful, well-dressed girl on the arm of the wealthy, well-bred young men who smelled so good (and they did smell good...). I couldn't walk in those heels for all the money in the world. I was the girl with the camera. Who was limp and wrinkled in the heat. Not to say that I didn't belong there. I did. I do. I just have a very evident socioeconomic bias.

It's a source of humor for me.

So we left... having lost all our bets and eaten hot dogs. We walked to the car and drove away. And I couldn't help but think that, despite the money the other's had one, besides the valet parking, besides the box seats and big hats... I was the one who had walked away with my hands full--my arms full. My heart full. Which is why I go to Keeneland at all. Tell Ernie that it's not about the gambling.

But my day was not over.

I went to the Home last night... the home for pregnant/sexually abused teenage girls. And I took Liza with me. We were late (fighting downtown traffic on a Friday night was our excuse). Tasha and Jess and Alexa and Sara were already there, had ordered pizza, and spread out newspapers so we could paint mini pumpkins. Jess brought the movie Gremlins... thinking it was a "scary" movie for Halloween. Turns out it's a disgusting Christmas movie.

"Where have you been? You're late." One of the girls said. She stared at me and then cracked up laughing when I threw my hands up in the air and blamed Liza. It's never my fault. But they had noticed I was not there... they had noticed my absense.

We turned on the movie, sat down, and started painting pumpkins in glittery, pink, and purple paints. One of the girls, who is fifteen years old, had been having contractions for the past hour. One more hour and they were taking her over to UK. Her due date is next week. The other fifteen year old girl let Sara hold her four month old baby. The baby girl kept crying and fussing and Sara kept rocking and bouncing her. This turned out to not be such a good idea. The poor girl vomited all down Sara's arm... crying and shaking her head and vomiting again and again. The baby's fifteen year old mother just stared. She didn't get up to help, she didn't offer to take the baby from Sara. Just sat there with a paintbrush in her hand and acted like the child was not hers.

So I got up and cleaned Sara's arm off and cleaned up the baby's face and took the baby from Sara so she could go wash off. I held the baby girl the rest of the evening. She laughs a lot, likes to suck on her toes, and has the prettiest brown eyes I've ever seen. When it was about time to go, the girls started bustling around, cleaning up, moving chairs. So I stood up with the baby in my arms.

She was sleepy, rubbing her eyes and yawning and holding onto any part of me she could get a hold of. I rocked back and forth on my feet and laid my cheek against the baby's head. And all I could do was pray. Looking around me at the three fifteen year old girls who were pregnant, the one fifteen year old who was a mommy already, and the two others who had been sexually abused by brothers or fathers... all I could do was pray.

And I remembered the girls at Keeneland. In their Gucci and Prada. And I know that underneath the labels, they have pain. And that no one is as perfect, or clean, as they appear. And to be quite honest, I would never wish the life of a the rich and famous on anyone.

But I held that baby in my arms. And I wanted more for her. I wanted her to know what it felt like to be loved. And to be safe. Father, take this child as your own.

I am glad I am not a mother yet. Really. But in that moment I would have wrapped her up in a blanket and taken her home. To be honest, I would have wrapped my arms around that fifteen year old mother and taken her home too.

Because I know what happened in my life that kept me from going down that path... that kept me from the Gucci and the Prada. But what also kept me from motherhood at fifteen... or abuse (of any kind). We had a guy come to our door the other night and ask us, if we could teach the "inner city kids" one thing to help change their lives, what would it be.

I wanted to tell him I wouldn't start with the kids. And the lesson I would teach, I'm not qualified to teach. And really, it's not something quite so tangible. But there's something to be said about love... and grace... and purpose.

And despite my socioeconomic bias, I feel for both girls. And I want our Father to take them both as His own. This, actually, is the same prayer I pray for my sisters. For Tanner and Ella. For Austin and Carter.

Father, take them as your own.

Because the Father has no bias.