As I followed the sound of the music that was getting louder with each step...out of my bedroom, past the 2nd bedroom, down the hallway and around the corner, I noticed that the sound of strings began to be accompanied by two voices, in unison almost.
As I peeped my head around the corner, I saw my 7 year old 'baby girl' with the plastic runner that we usually kept in front of the living room door (for people to walk on and remove their shoes in the rainy, snowy weather) now repositioned to look like an aisle right up the middle of the living room floor. She had my lace table doily on her head like a veil, and held with both hands right in front of her was a bunch of my fake plastic flowers that used to be in a vase on the table, now tied together in a lop sided bow with the sash from her house coat.
She didn't see me. She just kept standing attentively, staring into the T.V., and reciting right along with the man: "Do you take ('Blah Blah Blah') to be your lawful wedded wife....." I must have moved or something, because she whipped around really fast and the doily went cock-eyed on her head, one of the fake flowers fell on the floor next to her bare feet, and she said, very embarrassingly: "You're up!!"
We both started laughing hysterically because we had had many little conversations, over the 2 years I had been baby sitting her, about boys and how she was never gonna get married to no 'yucky boy'. When I found her all decked out in this scene, practicing her wedding along with "A Wedding Story" (a T.V. show that came on 'The Learning Channel'), I asked her what had happened to her resolve not to ever marry. She said: "Well, that was before. But now I'm marrying 'Mr, Right'. He's a brother!"
Her statement about him being a 'brother' was in reference to our beliefs that you should marry 'only in the Lord', or someone with the same faith. I reveled at the fact that she had apparently been paying attention, and that her standards were elevated! The conversation over lunch that day was very animated.
Could you see this picture in your mind's eye? It remains in mine. I love her very much...My hubby and I always said that if we ever had a child we'd want it to be a little girl. We never had that little girl. My girlfriend, a single mom, shared her daughter with us. I called her 'Baby Girl' because she was the daughter we never had. We have shared her life for many years now.
She did marry a 'brother'. And she has a baby girl of her own now. I hope her baby girl gives her as much joy as she has given us over the years...This is a poem I have shared on my blog before, but now you have some more of the back story. Tell me what you think!
Daughter Of My Heart
She's the daughter of my heart,
Not my womb, like most kids are;
And to say she's loved by all
would not be taking it too far.
She was raised well, by her mom.
(Her other mother-besides me!)
SHE was there to wipe her runny nose,
and bounce her on her knee.
I came along much later;
and I'm thankful for the chance
to share her life a little,
and to see her spirit dance.
She's the daughter of my heart,
the daughter that we never had;
The child I wanted to give Jeff
so that, one day, he'd be a dad.
I didn't get to burp her,
or to read a bedtime story.
I didn't see her sick
with chicken pox, and have to worry.
We love her timely visits,
and her pictures everywhere;
And when her and Jeff play cards,
how fun to hear her yell "No Fair"!
For me, I love our little talks,
our spiritual time-our joking too.
She's the daughter of my heart,
because no womb would really do!
