There are many events and experiences that define my childhood. Once a foot race I was winning, against the neighborhood boys, ended abruptly when I fell and hit the corner on a set of stairs that lead over the back fence. The headlong crash resulted in cut below my right eye. The deep gash required stitches.
While initially I made some whining, I never cried for the numbing shot or while receiving sutures. I laid still and strong, confident in my ability to endure and accept this event.
I was learning that while some things in life are not fun, they are not worth crying over. Some things I could survive in spite of the discomfort it brought me.
There were other events that I did not survive well, that buckets of tears could not erase or repair. Fortunately no amount of tragedy could erase the magic I was able to recognize and appreciate in my world.
My metamorphosing tadpole and the other family pets were like me, vulnerable yet able to survive less than favorable conditions. Like me, my tattered and imperfect dolls were still lovable.
Terrors like angry dogs continued to exist in my world, but magic rose triumphant in nature and books. The unexplainable charms of the world filled me with hope and fueled my imagination.
My students love hearing about what each line drawing means. Every class sits intently with a smile on their faces. They recognize that I am a lot like them.
The child in the drawing is me. I once had long curly hair that sometimes got caught in my clothes. My father grew angry from my complaining so while my mother was out shopping he took the scissors to my hair and gave me a really horrible hair cut. I have no arms because children are often powerless to control what happens to them. The stitches story is important because I was learning that I could control how I reacted to things. Last year I wasn't particularly graceful in how I dealt with the trials given to me, but something miraculous and magical was born out of the fires. I was weary of battling and working and was needing . . . many things. I needed to trust the process, so I prayed. Embracing my emotional fatigue and taking up my questions with God resulted in some surprising answers. While today I'm not out of range, I'm not taking as many direct hits from enemy fire.
