One of the earliest memories of this little girl is sitting in church and while the minister was preaching the little girl is pinching her grandmother’s elbow and watching the skin slowly go back into place. And standing on the pew seat while everyone was standing and singing and as they looked at her and smile she was trying to sing as loud as her grandmother and at that time her mother. Is this the little girl that was loved?
The memory of the house next door to her grandmother and sitting in a little rocking chair watching black and white TV (Mickey mouse) while her baby bother laid in the playpen.
There is a memory of grandma’s house where the sun is shining through the venation blinds and sheer Pricilla curtains in the dining room and in the kitchen with the sun shining through with grandpa at the table and grandma at the stove cooking breakfast. The little girl feeling safe. Maybe not being told love but feeling safe.
Memory of a front porch with the swing on one end with grandpa’s chair close to it so they could talk as grandma swung on hot summer nights. And the little girl catching lighting bugs with her little brother and dreaming dreams of always living there.
Memories of sitting in the living room grandma in her rocking chair and me squeezing into it with her. Then as the little girl got bigger she sat in her own chair with grandma and grandpa in their chairs and little brother laying on the floor watching TV and the little girl pinching her brother with her toes picking on him like sisters do.
Memories of the little girl are frozen on these little bites of time that gave her a sense of safety that can’t be taken away. Where did that little girl go? She went into herself building a wall that could not be torn down to keep the hurt and disappointments from tearing down the good. People let the little girl down in so many ways. What the little girl was lead to believe was not true and no one knows how desperately the little girl wanted the family to be still together. When the grandparents left to go to their ancestors the little girl tried to hold on but there was no one that had the same feelings. The parents have took their last ride to their ancestors also and there was none. Who is this little girl, the little girl is gone. The little girl is me
