A Lesson in Gold
It was a neighbor girl’s birthday party and I was having the time of my grade-schooler life. Pin the tail on the donkey, balloons, cake with ice cream, the works. When the birthday girl’s mother topped it all off by bringing out a basket full of colorful dimestore rings, saying each of us girls could choose one, I swooned. Could life get any better?
When my turn came, I reached in with an absurd degree of pleasure to make my delicious choice (something already telling you I wasn’t going to make it to the convent?) and passed out cold.
The next thing I knew I was arguing with my grandmother about having to go to bed in the middle of the day. I had a party to get back to.
The next thing I knew after that, I was watching, against the dark backdrop of my closed eyelids, my name -- first and last
-- being slowly, gracefully written out in gold light. A dream, gently and miraculously unfolding a lesson in cursive, which I’d had a hard time grasping until that moment.
When I woke up and stepped out of bed, my foot landed early -- a new toy, a nurse’s kit, had been left for me, and one by the other bed for my sister. And, amazingly, by the door, two of the most beautiful dolls I’d ever seen: blue fairies, brand new in big blue boxes. Did fainting always cause miracles?
My family was all home and gathered in the kitchen. We marveled over the wonderful things Mom had brought us -- and it wasn’t even anybody’s birthday, except the neighbor girl’s -- and I had to have “medicinal” ginger ale and graham crackers.
“Guess what?” I called out amid the din. “I can write in writing!”
An embarrassed silence fell.
They all knew it had been one of my hardest struggles, that I was even getting taunted for it by a big kid on the bus, who’d scrawl in his binder and challenge me to pick script from scribble. I’d never been able, and just couldn’t make the letters connect when I wrote.
“No, really! I can now!” I assured them. “I dreamed it! Someone wrote my name out in writing, in gold! They showed me how!”
They thought they were embarrassed for me before . . .
And so I proved it. I wrote my name out just like the dream and was able to “write in writing” from that moment.
I hope everybody gets at least one day and one dream like that.
When my turn came, I reached in with an absurd degree of pleasure to make my delicious choice (something already telling you I wasn’t going to make it to the convent?) and passed out cold.
The next thing I knew I was arguing with my grandmother about having to go to bed in the middle of the day. I had a party to get back to.
The next thing I knew after that, I was watching, against the dark backdrop of my closed eyelids, my name -- first and last
-- being slowly, gracefully written out in gold light. A dream, gently and miraculously unfolding a lesson in cursive, which I’d had a hard time grasping until that moment.
When I woke up and stepped out of bed, my foot landed early -- a new toy, a nurse’s kit, had been left for me, and one by the other bed for my sister. And, amazingly, by the door, two of the most beautiful dolls I’d ever seen: blue fairies, brand new in big blue boxes. Did fainting always cause miracles?
My family was all home and gathered in the kitchen. We marveled over the wonderful things Mom had brought us -- and it wasn’t even anybody’s birthday, except the neighbor girl’s -- and I had to have “medicinal” ginger ale and graham crackers.
“Guess what?” I called out amid the din. “I can write in writing!”
An embarrassed silence fell.
They all knew it had been one of my hardest struggles, that I was even getting taunted for it by a big kid on the bus, who’d scrawl in his binder and challenge me to pick script from scribble. I’d never been able, and just couldn’t make the letters connect when I wrote.
“No, really! I can now!” I assured them. “I dreamed it! Someone wrote my name out in writing, in gold! They showed me how!”
They thought they were embarrassed for me before . . .
And so I proved it. I wrote my name out just like the dream and was able to “write in writing” from that moment.
I hope everybody gets at least one day and one dream like that.
