Another FFF

Flash Fiction Friday is a writing project - JJ over at Purgatorian gives us a starting phrase, and we write from there. I do not always write fiction - sometimes, it's a starting point for a story about something that DID happen to me, that I wanted to write about, and just didn't have that first phrase to get me off and running. So the text in bold below is the "starter" he gave us this Friday. But this is not fiction.

***

Remember? How could I forget? I recall it specifically because the man stood there tring not to cry in front of me, and I felt like an insensitive fool.

Last spring I completely fumbled a moment where I could have been more supportive. After many months, I got a chance to go back and fix it a little, but not enough.

I've gotten to know L. a bit better, because our kids have become good friends. My daughter and I invited her friend to do some scrapbooking with us yesterday. They're in 5th grade now, both having repeated a grade. In Kindergarten this little girl's mother died.

***

Think about that. Stop and think.

You're a little girl in Kindergarten and your mother dies.

Six years later, you can recite the exact date she died, of course.

You go to scrapbook with a friend of yours and her goofy mother and you have a new album, and a few pictures of yourself.

You want to make a page about your mother's death, but you don't have a picture of yourself with her. You just don't have one. You have one of her and a baby, but that baby looks like your brother, not you.

You just don't have one.

It breaks the goofy lady's heart. Because you're sweet, and cute, and you just want to make a scrapbook page with you and your Mom on it, and all she can do is give you some paper and say "...write, honey. Write down anything that you want that you remember about your Mom- what she liked and what she was good at." And she knows that's not enough, but it's all she can think of to say, because now she is the one trying not to cry.

***

Maybe it's better that I didn't know her mom. I can try to help the daughter, just one tiny bit, without my own sadness over missing her mom standing in my way.

When I talked to her Dad later, I told him that she wanted to do a special page and what it was about. This time, I at least knew her Mom's name. I hope that I made up for that awkward moment last year just a little bit; I really hope so.

He said that he probably DOES have a picture of them together, of course, and that he'll look.

It made me think about the times that I've said "No, don't take my picture, my hair is a mess" or "I'm fat" or "I have my glasses on" or "I don't have any makeup."

Don't do that. Don't be one of those people, who refuses to have their picture taken. People who love you just want a photo of you as you are. Not the hollywood version of you, the "someday I'll be thinner, with whiter teeth and a better nose and perfect hair...", but the YOU of you, so that they can keep that if they lose you.

The real you. The one they will remember. How could they forget?