When she was little, she loved horses. She must have galloped a million miles around our couch watching Spirit or Flicka. We read all the horse books she could find. She slept with a stuffed horse and played with plastic horses in a corral made by her Papa. She loved horses and was going to be a veterinarian when she grew up because she also loved dogs and cats and all the animals.
She went to kindergarten and soon loved not only horses but new friends and teachers and reading! Oh, she loved to read! The first book she read on her own was a chapter book and while it wasn't about a horse, it did involve a unicorn. She loved to make new friends and loved them all fiercely and forever; she was always very loyal. She loved to learn and excelled and if it wasn't for Math, she would have never doubted how very smart she was. She still wanted to be a veterinarian because, honestly, she loved animals more than she loved people.
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| How do you caption your heart? |
She was in the back row of every performance because she was tall. She would stand up so excitedly, scanning the room, seeing who was there. She sang her heart out, acted her heart out, and ad-libbed her heart out through every grade school performance. Even that damn recorder.
She grew and changed but her heart stayed the same. She loved all animals and most people. If they hurt, she hurt more. If they were happy, she was happy too. If they made her laugh, oh, she threw her head back and her laugh would ring out across the room. She was joy and wonder and the very embodiment of all that is good in the world.
She hit puberty and middle school and doubts. She no longer sang as loud or looked as excited. She withdrew, she hid, she tried to fit in. Hurts from friends or not friends or boys pierced her heart. She seemed to grow smaller as she grew taller and that beautiful heart seemed to always be in a million pieces or more. She said maybe she didn't want to be a veterinarian any more because sometimes animals died.
She went to a new high school knowing just one person and her mom. She worried about finding friends, she worried about where to eat lunch, she worried about worrying. Yet, she prevailed. She found friends. She found a place to eat lunch. She found where her mom hid her snacks and ate them and gave them to her friends. She nurtured and counseled and helped new friends all while finding her footing in this new place. She took hard classes and excelled. She took Math and still hated it. She took Art and her paintings, her drawings, her sketches took on life. She said maybe she would be a doctor, a psychologist, a crime scene investigator, an artist, a lawyer.
She got a job, then another job. She worked hard and smiled and made people happy and when they commented that she was doing a great job, she was shocked and pleased; she was just doing her job. She learned quickly these were not the jobs she wanted to be doing for a long period of time.
She looked forward to school and friends and change and finally being a Senior. What should have been a year of celebration and laughter turned into a year of sheer endurance. She endured. She endured her parent's divorce, moving from her childhood home, break-ups with friends, and with boys who were unworthy. She was sad, she was angry, and she fumed with a world gone wrong and awry and uncertainty about how to fix it. She was recognizing her value and she talked of moving away, far away. She wanted to run and fly and even gallop a million miles away. She wanted to be anything but here.
She watched COVID19 shut the world down and felt relieved to be done with that grind of school. She watched movies and spent time with her family and settled and healed and sighed. After a time, she missed normalcy and other people and sighed even more. She missed the things she would be missing. She wanted stories of prom or skipping school or those sweet last days when teachers laughed more than they lectured. She missed the idea of graduation and walking the stage and living that day about her, about her classmates, about what they had done, and the hope of the things they would do. She wanted pomp but will just get circumstance.
Going forward, she will do great. She will make mistakes and she will succeed. She will find love and lose love and vow to never love again and then love again. She will learn to drive and she will always park too close to the building. She will befriend the friendless and she will care more than any other person in the world. She will be loyal, she will work hard, she will grow and shine and be anything she wants to be. She will throw her head back and laugh and when she does, the world will stop. If you are lucky, you will be the one that caused that laugh and be sure to listen to the joy and happiness and love of humor and life that ring in that laugh. Notice how her eyes shine and her smile lights up her face because when you do, you will see how she will be anything she wants to be and we will all be better for it.
