15 For 15 Entries ~ January 2011

Jan 21 ~ Wall

Joy reached up and slipped her petal soft hand into mine. "I love you, Mama."

"I love you too, angel."

We wandered farther away from our picnic spot, following the old stone wall as we strolled through the grass. I explained to Joy that the wall was a relic from the Civil War. Actual battles had taken place right where we walked. I glanced down at her.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

She concentrated on her sandals, that made a swish sound in the grass with each skater's glide step she made.

"Something," I insisted. "You didn't ask me what 'relic' means or say it's cool that a war happened here. Not like you." I squeezed her hand. "Out with it. What's going on with you."

She turned her cerub face up to me. "Well, okay, there is something."

Her solemn expression surprised me. Usually she's a bubbling nine-year-old who you'd swore ate Mexican Jumping beans for breakfast. I stopped and leaned against the warm rock of the wall, tugging her hand so she'd be closer.

"So, when we get home, I'm going to ask you if Sara can spend the night."

Sara lived next door, and was Joy's BFF. A sleepover was a weekly event.

"Great," I said.

Joy kicked at the base of the wall. Without looking up, she said, "I want you to say it's not okay. OKay?"

"What? Why?"

She sighed. "It's just, Sara keeps telling me she wants to sleep over, and, well, I'm kind of sick of her."

This was news to me. I stayed quiet, urging her with another squeeze of the hand to go on.

"She's bossy, Mama. We always have to play what she wants to play. And she always wants to play dumb make-believe games like Hannah Montana. Only she always gets to be Hannah, and I always have to be one of her backup singers."

"Sweetheart, you have to talk to her about this. Friends need to say when something isn't gong okay, or else you'll grow to resent each other."

But Mama, when I say something, Sara gets really mad and won't talk to me. Seriously! She just mopes around and turns her back if I try to talk." A shadow crossed Joy's face. "It's just easier to go along with her."

"Yes, that is easier. But it doesn't work forever." I turned her chin up so she could look at me. "You are a special person, just like Sara is. You are just as important. Find your voice and tell her, from your heart, how you are feeling. And, Joy, if she won't listen, if she gets mad and broods, then she isn't as good a friend as you thought."

Sunshine returned to Joy's eyes. She hugged my waist. "Thank you,mama! You always make me feel so much better."

Just then a grasshopper jumped to the top of the wall next to us. Joy tried to catch it between her hands, but it hopped of on the other side. At a break in the wall, Joy crossed to the other side and chased after it, giggling, her bouncing hair catching golden rays of sunlight.