One Sunday
morning when we lived in Texas, I was in the hallway of the Sunday school
classrooms at church ready to pick up the girls. Sarah, who was four at the
time ran up to me and said, “Mom, did you know my name in Hebrew means princess?” I could not believe my ears. “Sarah,
we have only been telling you that since the day you were born.” But I guess it
was not real to Sarah until someone outside of the family told her.
(This is the same hallway
where, on another day when the space was filled with kids and parents all going
every which way and were boisterously loud, a Dad who was looking for his child called
out, “Bubba?” and the hall went quiet!
It was as if every little boy there turned to look and see if it was his own father calling him. I felt like I
was in the middle of a “you know you are in Texas joke” – you know you are in
Texas when all the sons are nicknamed Bubba!)
It was also
one evening when Sarah was four that she pulled a book off a shelf at home and
brought it to me. From the picture on the cover and from the illustrations
inside, Sarah got the impression it was a children’s story. “Mom, why have you
never read this book to us?”
The book was The Little Prince. “I’ve been saving
that story because I think you might be a little too young right now to really
appreciate the humor in it.”
Sarah started
to shake a little, and she said, “If I promise
to appreciate the humor in it Mom, will you read it to us?”
“Goobs, I don’t
think I have ever gotten all the
humor that is in the book, but yes, of course I will read it to you, we can
make discoveries together.”
It was
wonderful!
And every time
Sarah and Amanda and I read the story, there was something new.
The earnestness with which
Sarah asked the question brought about a new family saying – I
promise to appreciate the humor.
Goober more than fulfilled
that promise and fourteen years later, as soon as she moved to Athens to go to college, she got a baobab tree tattoo!
311 20151106 The Little Princess
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