Lisa, my two-year-old daughter, and I were walking down the street
toward home one sunny morning when two elderly women stopped in
front of us. Smiling down at Lisa, one of them said, "Do you know
you are a very beautiful little girl?"
Sighing and putting her hand on her hip, Lisa replied in a bored
voice, "Yes, I know!"
A bit embarrassed by my daughter's seeming conceit, I apologized
to the two ladies and we continued our walk home. All the way there,
I was trying to determine how I was going to handle this situation.
After we went into the house, I sat down and stood Lisa in front
of me. I gently said, "Lisa, when those two ladies spoke to you, they
were talking about how pretty you are on the outside. It's true you
are pretty on the outside. That's how God made you. But a person needs
to be beautiful on the inside, too." As she looked at me
uncomprehendingly, I continued.
"Do you want to know how a person is beautiful on the inside?"
She nodded solemnly.
"Okay. Being beautiful on the inside is a choice you make, honey,
to be good to your parents, a good sister to your brother and a good
friend to the children you play with. You have to care about other
people, honey. You have to share your toys with your playmates. You
need to be caring and loving when someone is in trouble or gets hurt
and needs a friend. When you do all those things, you are beautiful
on the inside. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes, Mommy, I'm sorry I didn't know that," she replied. Hugging
her, I told her I loved her and that I didn't want her to forget what
I'd said. The subject never came up again.
Nearly two years later, we moved from the city to the country and
enrolled Lisa in a preschool program. In her class was a little girl
named Jeanna, whose mother had died. The child's father had recently
married a woman who was energetic, warm and spontaneous. It was
readily apparent that she and Jeanna had a wonderful, loving
relationship.
One day Lisa asked if Jeanna could come over to play for an afternoon,
so I made arrangements with her stepmother to take Jeanna home with us
the next day after the morning session.
As we were leaving the parking lot the following day, Jeanna said,
"Can we go see my mommy?"
I knew her stepmother was working, so I said cheerfully, "Sure, do
you know how to get there?" Jeanna said she did and, following her
directions, I soon found myself driving up the gravel road into the
cemetery.
My first response was one of alarm as I thought of the possible
negative reaction of Jeanna's parents when they learned what had
happened. However, it was obvious that visiting her mother's grave
was very important to her, something she needed to do; and she was
trusting me to take her there. Refusing would send her a message
that it was wrong of her to want to go there.
Outwardly calm, as though I'd known this was where we were going all
along, I asked, "Jeanna, do you know where your mother's grave is?"
"I know about where it is," she responded.
I parked on the road in the area she indicated and we looked around
until I found a grave with her mother's name on a small marker.
The two little girls sat down on one side of the grave and I sat on
the other and Jeanna started talking about how things had been at
home in the months leading up to her mother's death, as well as what
had happened on the day she died. She spoke for some time and all the
while Lisa, with tears streaming down her face, had her arms around
Jeanna and, patting her gently, said quietly over and over, "Oh,
Jeanna, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry your mother died."
Finally, Jeanna looked at me and said, "You know, I still love my
mommy and I love my new mommy, too."
Deep in my heart, I knew that this was the reason she'd asked to
come here. Smiling down at her, I said reassuringly, "You know, Jeanna,
that's the wonderful thing about love. You never have to take it away
from one person to give it to another. There's always more than
enough to go around. It's kind of like a giant rubber band that
stretches to surround all the people you care about." I continued,
"It's perfectly fine and right for you to love both your mothers. I'm
sure your own mother is very glad that you have a new mommy to love
you and take care of you and your sisters."
Smiling back at me, she appeared satisfied with my response. We sat
quietly for a few moments and then we all stood up, brushed ourselves
off and went home. The girls played happily after lunch until
Jeanna's stepmother came to pick her up.
Briefly, without going into a lot of detail, I told her what had
occurred that afternoon and why I'd handled things as I had. To my
profound relief, she was very understanding and appreciative.
After they left, I picked Lisa up in my arms, sat down on a kitchen
chair, kissed her cheek and hugged her tightly and said, "Lisa, I'm
so proud of you. You were such a wonderful friend to Jeanna this
afternoon. I know it meant a lot to her that you were so understanding
and that you cared so much and felt her sadness."
A pair of lovely, dark brown eyes looked seriously into mine as my
daughter added, "Mommy, was I beautiful on the inside?"
© Pamela J deRoy