Abandoned in Search of Rainbows
January 25, 1954, in upstate New York was another gloomy arid frigid winter day. In downtown Rochester, piles of icy snow, filthy from automobile exhaust, road salt, and sand, lined the sidewalks.
As Mrs. Slora, owner of Saeger’s Grill, the neighborhood bar and restaurant located at 218 Clinton Avenue North, tended to her chores inside, she saw a young woman enter through the bar’s side door. Dressed in a long, black coat and a flowered kerchief tied around her head, she appeared very tired. As the young woman headed directly toward the restroom, Mrs. Slora noticed that she was carrying a brown paper bag.
After several minutes had passed, Mrs. Slora realized she’d not seen the woman come out of the restroom. Thinking there might be a problem, Mrs. Slora hurried over to find out if she could help. But when she opened the restroom door, the woman was not to be found.
What she did find, however, was the paper sack the woman had been carrying. It had been placed on the lid of the toilet seat. Mrs. Slora walked over and peered inside the bag. To her utter dismay, she saw a tiny infant, sleeping peacefully.
Bits of dark brown hair flared out from beneath the blanket in which the child had been wrapped. As gently as possible, Mrs. Slora removed the tiny bundle, unwrapped the blanket, and saw that the abandoned infant was a baby girl.
I learned quickly that by being an adopted child I had been chosen. Although I didn’t comprehend the distinction from how Chip and I were chosen but other children were not, I sure loved the sound of that word, “chosen,” especially the way my mom said it.
Over the years, I was indeed diagnosed as colorblind by more than one doctor, which in the scheme of things has caused me no serious problems. I’ve learned to ask for help in choosing color combinations before stepping out in public. But I never quite got over the fact of just how rare it is for a girl to be colorblind, and the fact that I was in that teeny tiny miniscule percentage of females with this “problem” in some ways pissed me off because, once again, I was different.
On the other hand, because I saw colors in a different way, we soon discovered that I had a rare ability to adjust our color TV so that the color would be perfect. Why? Who knows? All I know is that the word got out: “Having trouble adjusting your color TV? You don’t need a TV repairman; just call Kimmy Driggs. She’ll fix it for you.”
Calls came in all the time. I loved that.
“Kim, you are cancer free. You are cured. I don’t say that always, but I’m sure of it.” So said my oncologist, Dr. Michael in July 2003.
And five days later, as his words repeated in Jae’s and my heads, we sat in a plane pushing back from the gate at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. We were on our way to Kailua Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii for another seventeen-day vacation.
My body was tired from the previous seven arduous months of fear, stress, shots, tests, treatments, and inner turmoil. I was totally bald, and my skin looked dull and greyish. But my spirit was overflowing with happiness, and my smile beamed with joy. I was going to Hawaii.
One morning while Janet was still sleeping, I got up to go outside and listen to the Hawaiian mourning doves. I took a yellow pad of paper and sat on the grass overlooking the ocean. Closing my eyes, I thanked God, the angels, and the great beings who watch over us for saving my life and giving me another chance. I realized in that moment that life is short, is precious, and can change in a heartbeat.
Although Jae and I had talked of moving someday to Hawaii, I no longer wanted to wait so long. I asked them please to show me a way to manifest how Jae and I could move now, not five or ten years from now, to the islands.
Abandoned in Search of Rainbows is available from Basically Books, Kona Stories, and other local bookstores.
A.K. Driggs, the author of Abandoned in Search of Rainbows, is a Kailua-Kona resident. These excerpts are used with permission.
Contact author A. K. Driggs
