Tracking

The memory is a weird place.  You can go along for a while and not think about something, you get busy with other things and time just seems to blur out the details.  Then Michele talked about one of her co-workers going to a kindergarten graduation for her granddaughter.
For some reason or other that made me think back two years, to another kindergarten graduation, which also happened to be the very last day a certain little girl spent in this world.  And just like that, I get to remember again.  I could write about it... or not... but I feel like if I don't I'm just running away from the horror.  So I'm going again into the darkness.  If you don't want to read about it, stop here and go look at pictures of kittens or something that makes you feel good.
This is in honor of a little girl whose smile felt like a gift.
Sarah was shy.  Most of the time she hid behind her Mom, holding on to her leg and peeking out at all the strange people.  I make it a point to try and notice kids, even if I'm going about my grown-up kind of business.  I make a face or a funny noise by popping my finger in my cheek.  I do it because I remember from somewhere in the past, what it was like to be invisible, to be a nuisance, to be in the way, and I don't think kids should ever have to feel like that.
I don't get pushy about it, I just let them know that I see them.  I know, I'm big, and I have a beard and I have a official type job that puts me up in front, and all those things can seem scary to kids.
I knew Sarah had some real dark things in her little life, her Mom and Dad weren't getting along, and most of the time she was just being pulled this way and that.  And she was such a little elf that you wanted to put her in your pocket and protect her from every bad thing, but I couldn't.
I would have told her that there were no such thing as monsters, and that would have been a lie.
I would have told her that life was so big and so full of possibilities, but kindergarten was all she got.
Kindergarten and a few hours at home playing with her barbies, before the darkness in her father got the best of him, and took the rest of her life away from her.
It was one of those things that forces you to believe in evil, not just brokenness, evil.
In the end, because she was a precious thing, too precious to give up, he took her away from all of us.
And that's the real tragedy: twisted love that could not let her graduate into whatever came next... separation... divorce... first grade.
Her smile is still more haunting than the Mona Lisa.
I'm glad I took the time to notice.
Here are your balloons again, I'm sending up thoughts and trying hard to make them happy: