Page 19 - Contrast1992Spring

A Valentine from a Little Heart

Lazy flakes of whiteness powder off the roof and fly past my window in the
winter grayness outside. The light from inside shines a yellow reflection in the win-
dow making the cold seem very far away. Someone's laugh echos down the hallway
and a distant radio screeches out a tired beat. Children who live in the houses outside
topple over one another on red sleds and create a human rainbow of brightly coloered
coats, boots,mittens and scarves against the snow. The room I'm sitting in is warm
and thick with clothes, books, gum wrappers, posters, and tapes scattered around. It
is all only a blink of reality as I hear her voice-only a passing thought.

She spoke low and softly, and I entered her world. "Hi Kristi, this is ... um .. .I
mean .... um ... We really miss you."

I suddenly heard the sounds and feelings of a place not so far away. It was as
if I recognized it all, that I was actually there, but I could only listen. From the seven
year old's voice, my past was fast-forwarded to the present.

"Today is February 12th, Lincoln's birthday. Jenny and Neil went to a dance
last weekend, and me and mommy went to Pizza Hut, and I spilled my coke, and ... "

Those words were from the little girl who was never the same little girl each
time I left home and returned. She was captured on that tape I was listening to, if
only it was just a moment of her before another day would allow har to continue to
grow.

I smiled as her "smart start speller" game beeped a familiar tune as she taught
me how to spell another word for the one hundreth time, The piano keys tinkled as
she tapped out a small melody that she believed was greater than a symphony.

"Sometimes the boys in my school are really dumb," explained the first grader.
"We took a trip to the planetarium yesterday."

My fmgers ran over the buttons of the tape player as I wished they could
somehow pause, stop, and rewind my little sister's life so that I could listen to her at
any age, look at her round chubby face and bright blue baby's eyes before they ma-
ture into the young girl who talked to me through the speakers.

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