I am purple today…
Purple is the color of sadness and passion mixed.
Friday, Greg, David and I went to the fair. While walking around under the grandstand, we stopped by McAfee’s Photography booth. We saw some photographs of people’s little girls dressed as spring fairies and autumn fairies, lying in rapt attention on the bank of a pond or frolicking sweetly through fields of fallen leaves. I don’t know why, but for some strange reason these photos struck my heart like a razor-edged chord that played the sweetest, saddest song I’d heard in some time.
I saw a little girl, MY little girl, fawn-haired, blue-green eyed, dressed like a precious fairy with a smile creeping across kewpie doll lips she got from her mama. The tears overwhelmed me as if I had been picked up by the hair of my head and plunged into icy water. I spoke to the lady from McAfee’s, mentioning how beautiful the fairy photos were.
She smiled and said, “do you have a little girl?”
God, that question was like an axe in my head. I wanted to say, “no lady, I don’t have a little girl. I want one, though, a beautiful little girl who looks just like a combination of me and her daddy, except I want her to be slim, willowy and graceful…I want her to be everything I never was. I want her to be…damn it, I just want her to BE. I just want HER. I want to hold her and feel her smooth cheek against mine, smell the top of her little head, know I made this beautiful little thing.
I know I have students who care about me, but then they grow up and leave. I’m NOT their mama; they don’t come crying to me when they fight with each other, they don’t need me when they are scared of the monster under the bed, they don’t need me to cry with them when their little hearts are broken, they don’t laugh and spin in my arms with joy because I am simply “mama.” They don’t come home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays with their own babies on their hips. I love them so, but eventually my students don’t need me anymore. No matter how old you are, you always need your mama.
I walked from the photographer’s booth and made it a few steps before the tears really started to flow. Greg asked what was wrong and I told him. He grinned sheepishly and muttered something about “hormones.” yeah, I’m sure that’s it.
Purple is the color of sadness and passion mixed.
Friday, Greg, David and I went to the fair. While walking around under the grandstand, we stopped by McAfee’s Photography booth. We saw some photographs of people’s little girls dressed as spring fairies and autumn fairies, lying in rapt attention on the bank of a pond or frolicking sweetly through fields of fallen leaves. I don’t know why, but for some strange reason these photos struck my heart like a razor-edged chord that played the sweetest, saddest song I’d heard in some time.
I saw a little girl, MY little girl, fawn-haired, blue-green eyed, dressed like a precious fairy with a smile creeping across kewpie doll lips she got from her mama. The tears overwhelmed me as if I had been picked up by the hair of my head and plunged into icy water. I spoke to the lady from McAfee’s, mentioning how beautiful the fairy photos were.
She smiled and said, “do you have a little girl?”
God, that question was like an axe in my head. I wanted to say, “no lady, I don’t have a little girl. I want one, though, a beautiful little girl who looks just like a combination of me and her daddy, except I want her to be slim, willowy and graceful…I want her to be everything I never was. I want her to be…damn it, I just want her to BE. I just want HER. I want to hold her and feel her smooth cheek against mine, smell the top of her little head, know I made this beautiful little thing.
I know I have students who care about me, but then they grow up and leave. I’m NOT their mama; they don’t come crying to me when they fight with each other, they don’t need me when they are scared of the monster under the bed, they don’t need me to cry with them when their little hearts are broken, they don’t laugh and spin in my arms with joy because I am simply “mama.” They don’t come home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays with their own babies on their hips. I love them so, but eventually my students don’t need me anymore. No matter how old you are, you always need your mama.
I walked from the photographer’s booth and made it a few steps before the tears really started to flow. Greg asked what was wrong and I told him. He grinned sheepishly and muttered something about “hormones.” yeah, I’m sure that’s it.
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