My three-year old granddaughter sat immobilized, hands folded on the lap of her flowered sundress. Big blue eyes stared at the stage following every move of the fairy tale characters. Goldilocks and her bear trio was Evie’s favorite story and she mouthed every spoken line. The plot closely matched a well-worn DVD played over and over on her Barbie recorder.
The audience was filled with young parents trying to corral their squirming, chatty, inattentive offspring. Not my pre-schooler. This was my cherub’s first live performance and she was mesmerized by the play. Forty-five minutes of dancing, singing and spoken word–not Broadway, but actually surprisingly entertaining.
The curtain fell. Dozens of munchkins scrambled for the exits, racing ahead of exasperated mommies. My towhead sat as still as the intruder sleeping in Baby Bear’s tiny bed. I rose from my chair and asked, “Did you like the play?” “Oh yeth, Mema Lucy,” She lisped through missing front teeth beneath a sprinkling of freckles. “It was the Best!”
My little darling remained frozen, unblinking eyes glued to the stage. To an empty theatre I announced, “It’s time to go now.” “No! No! No!” Evie stomped her foot and demanded, “I am not leaving until you play it AGAIN!”
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Living my personal mission statement, “Each One, Teach One,” my greatest blessing is being the mother of two, grandmother of three and a lifelong educator. A graduate of UF and UNF, I am the former principal of St. Paul’s Catholic School in Jacksonville Beach, Florida and executive director of Tree Hill Nature Center in Jacksonville.
Since retirement my avocation is now my vocation – freelance writing. The technical writing of past professional life evolved into more creative genres of poetry, short fiction and memoir. My goal is to invoke the entire spectrum of human emotions in my reader: longing to laughter, pain to promise, despair to discernment.
