Annie was a prostitute when she was 17. Now she’s pregnant.
I am proud of Annie.
Context.
Context changes and clarifies and relieves us of all sorts of anxiety.
Annie was indeed a prostitute when she was a senior in high school. I even spent a good two days searching out a black corset for her to look her best as a prostitute. Black lace with satin ribbing, purchased discreetly at a thrift store in Salt Lake City. She looked great!
Dave and I spent every night for over a week watching her strut her stuff while she sang:
Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light.
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise.
She joined the chorus of other prostitutes onstage, singing with Jean ValJean, Cosette, Eponine, Marius and Javert in Viewmont High’s fabulous musical feast Les Miserables. We laughed and wept nightly with the rest of the audience, most often from the back of the packed auditorium, slipping out before intermission to man the concessions tables. She was a beautiful, angelic prostitute, the colored lights hidden in the rafters above the stage casting light and shadow on her purposely frizzed hair and shapely form. Knowing she was so far from the actuality of her part made it beautiful to see her, to sense her sweet vibrato now and then among the voices she sang with. It was strangely alright with us that she could pretend for two hours a night to be …seriously… a prostitute? She was a good pretender. Thank the Lord she was a pretender.
Annie fell in love with Jordon that year. She missed her senior prom to help serve at his sister’s wedding reception. After Jordon returned from his mission to Brasil she married him. Dressed stunningly in her wedding gown, laced in the back just like that black corset, only all the way down her back to a lovely train that followed her like the princess she is in real-life, flowing like liquid behind her as she walked out of the temple and into the crowd of people who adore her, her elegant arm looped into the arm of the man who loved her enough to wait. The lights above her, far from artificial, came from heaven. She was radiant.
Now Annie and Jordon are nesting, fluffing their lives and preparing their home for the arrival of a new little one. Annie is pregnant. She is beautiful, blooming and full of laughter and happiness. She is bursting with divine potential. We can hardly wait!
Context. All things in their proper place. It feels perfectly right. Annie was a prostitute. And now she is pregnant.
