A Fish Tale
At the age of three, my daughter was enchanted with both Pochohontas and fish. After much cajoling and eyelash batting, (the latter was finely honed at a ridiculously early age) I relented and bought “Miss Charm the Pants off of Anyone” a Japanese Fighting Fish which my daughter naturally named Pochohontas. The following morning I am awakened by blood curdling screams. I rush into my daughter’s bedroom and find her collapsed on the hardwood floor holding a very dead fish in her hands. “Sweetie Petie, what happened to her?” “I don’t know, Mommy…she was fine when I tucked her into bed with me last night.” I cannot tell you how hard I bit the inside of my cheeks to prevent breaking out into uncontrollable laughter.
The following day, my daughter was greeted with a cuddly, soft, sleep-able Dutch Bunny which I named Scheherazade for obvious reasons!
Add a comment May 29, 2010
Love is Noisy
OK….a story when I was eight-years-old. We were living in College Greens, a subdivision of Sacramento, Mother’s Day was rapidly looming. Dad continually postponed our shopping excursion, so I had awakened early Saturday morning with a fistful of dollars I had saved from babysitting, (can you imagine hiring an 8 year old to babysit today?) I took the city transit to K Street, Downtown Sacramento; with many transfers. I spent hours perusing beautiful scarves, crystal vases, etc., Mom was not a practical woman. I wanted to buy her something luxurious with my $18.00! I stepped into a Llardro boutique, clueless that I couldn’t afford an ashtray. The shopkeeper was a stooped, elderly man with the countenance of a child. I told him I had been saving my babysitting money for six months to buy my mother an extraordinary gift for Mother’s Day, and after the bus fare I held out my crumpled $18.00 as if I were extending a Faberge’ Egg. That kind soul reached up to the top shelf and handed me this beautiful Lladro figurine in such exquisite porcelain and in hues so perfectly harmonious with our living room, I was struck by an unexpected attack of delicious. I peeked discreetly at the price tag: $300.00. Big fat tears rolled down my cheeks…..it was just so perfectly my mother and she was my polestar. The kind man removed the price tag and said, “the first girl who walks in to my boutique today in patent-leather Mary Jane shoes receives the sale price of $15.00.
I held my treasure as if it were the Holy Grail, made the many transfers returning to College Greens and walked into my house at 9:00 pm. My mother was beside herself with worry and was scolding me incessantly. I sat quietly on the sofa, sucking my thumb and twirling my hair through my pinky finger, and said, “Mom, you are ruining one of the most magical days, and they number so few.” I think she was struck mute by her conundrum of a daughter. A girl who ventures solo 25 miles from home by bus and then curls up to suck her thumb so she can hold that day in her mind’s eye, knowing that there are people who place a much higher value on a child’s unwaivering love than a piece of porcelain. I never relinquished my secret, I held it to my heart to serve as a talisman. Mom never knew how I came to purchase a Lladro, I think she assumed Dad gave me the money.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: Love is noisy, it leaks out of us even with the tightest security…it spills itself onto the public streets and enters the most callous of hearts …not one of is impervious to its charms. Nothing compares to pure, sweet, unadulterated love. My mother passed away two years ago and I am still smitten with her~
Add a comment May 29, 2010
