Tag Archives: life

Raining

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After it rained, steam rose from the ground, and swirled around. Goldi put on her bathing suit, ran out into the steamy air, and started to jump. The puddles were clean, round, and deep. They were perfect. A gift the rain gave to Goldie.

“There’s another one way down there!” Goldie cried as she skipped through a stream that rippled down the street and swirled around at the end of the culd de sac. The giant perfectly round clear puddle was suddenly lit up with sparkles. The grayish blue sky canvassed a rainbow. The sun lit it up long enough for everyone to look and wonder.

“Come on! It’s great!” Goldie’s hair was combed with fresh water drips. There was not a dry spot on her. Her wide open smile seemed to drink in the refreshment from the sky.

That was the happiest kind of rain.

Goldie held a blanket and a giant stuffed pink rabbit. She sunk down in a puffy beanbag jammed into the corner of her closet and closed its door.

“Goldie? Goldie are you in there?” My voice accompanied my eager knocking on her bedroom door. “Are you ok?”

Goldie didn’t answer. Even if she did. I would not have heard her. The thunder kept interrupting.

The sky blinked many times in a row. Then there was darkness.

“The power went out!” Goldie burst out of her closet. “Where is the flashlight?”

“Look,” I said placing the giant flashlight in the center of her room.

Goldie looked all around at what looked very familiar but to be sure- she felt each toy, book, and pillow. The darkness had not erased everything dear to her.

“When will the lights come back on?” she asked squeezing her pink bunny again.

“I am not sure. We’ll have our eyes closed most of the time anyway. It’s bedtime. “

“Oh,” Goldi said hurrying herself in blankets and other stuffed animals.

That was the mean and scary kind of rain.

“You are not going to like this question,” Goldie sighed and looked one way and then the other. “I am just wondering , is it supposed to rain tonight?”

Since spring, Goldie had been asking me the same question nearly everyday. Knowing if it would rain, cancelled any inkling to have a friend over, go shopping, or walk to the library. If I asked her, “Would you like to go to the bookstore?” She would say, “Maybe another day, today it is supposed to rain.”

“I will look at the forecast.” I assured her.

The forecast didn’t look very assuring. A nearly 100% chance of rain. Rain that we needed. Rain that would green up the world. Rain that would feed the lakes, rivers, and streams. Rain that would grow her favorite vegetable and make my flowers grow.

“Yes, it is supposed to rain. It says 100% chance”. “

“Is it going to be bad?” Goldi wrinkled up her forehead She squeezed one set of fingers with the other hand and then rubbed her palms together.

“I don’t know. But there is one thing I do know!” I said bouncing eyebrows up and down.

“What?” Goldie’s eyebrows jumped up and stayed up high in her forehead.

“I know who wants it to rain. I know who will show how big and powerful He is when it does.”

“That’s true. ” Goldie said looking out the window. In her long look, the sky was sometimes full of clouds and sometimes full of sun. The trees waved to her and then were still. She could hear the frogs singing.

The windows were soon washed. Then the whole house seemed to be in a bath. It seemed like a bucket of water was being dumped from above. The trees must have waved goodbye. We could not make them out through the window. . All we could see was wet. The sky didn’t blink but the bossy thunder made the window pane rattle.

“I’m scared.” Goldie said softly.

“I know,” I said standing shoulder to shoulder next to her. “and HE knows too”. I pointed up to the sky.

That is the stretching and growing and have to be brave kind of rain.

That is the rain that we have now.

Goldie finds out about Temple

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“Mom, I have something to tell you.” Goldie had come near to my reading and looked at me with wrinkles in her forehead and wide opened eyes.

“What is it?” I looked up from my book and waited in wonder about the story she would tell.

“She got upset. She threw things, tore paper, and banged her fists on the wall, and yelled!”

“Wow! That is what I call upset.” I said with wrinkles in my own forehead and my own eyes big. I looked out the window and saw a flashback. Goldie was stomping around and screaming. I can’t remember her throwing anything or tearing anything up. But the door was closed so that the sound of her “tantrum” was somewhat muffled. Was she throwing a tantrum because we told her we were going to the store instead of going to the post office? Was it because we made her try ONE little piece of broccoli at dinner? I am too old to remember and Goldie’s temper has been coated with sweetness now.

“I don’t think her mom was upset. She was probably just trying to figure out the best way to help her daughter ”

“She said, she wanted to go into the squeezing machine.” Goldie was extremely serious. She didn’t smile. Her eyebrows were still and straight. “Did I have a squeezing machine?”

“No,” I said, “Here is what we had” I opened up my arms and wrapped them around her.

“Ah, mom that’s way too tight.” she said.

“Sorry” I said dropping my hands to my sides.

“The doctors told her mom to send her to a school that was also kind of like a hospital and live there for the rest of her life!” Goldie stomped one foot. Her eyes seemed to pop out of her face.

“But her mother didn’t listen. She got her a lot of help. She didn’t belong locked up in a school all the time. ” I patted her shoulder and smiled.

“Was I supposed to go to a school like that?” Goldie’s face blushed a bit

“Absolutely not! You learned right along with everyone else! Right?”

“Yeah that’s right!” Goldie’s smile was ear to ear.

“But, her friends laughed at her sometimes. That is not good.”

I knew that some of Goldie’s friends had teased, scolded, bossed her around, excluded her, and done nothing but “not good” things.

“Yes, that is not good. But did she say “I am not good? Did she give up and not even meet anyone and say ‘nice to meet you’. ?

“No mom! She had a friend from school that was really nice to her!” Goldie cried.

“That is a good thing.” I smiled and counted on two hands the many friends Goldie had met and that were nice and did good things.

“Mom, Is she a cowboy?” Goldie wore scrunched up eyebrows.

Every picture of Temple Grandi that I have seen, she is wearing a shirt with a scarf pinned down with a bolo tie.

“I suppose so. She knows a lot about cows. She helped her relatives on a cattle farm.”

“I don’t like cows. I like art. ” Goldie’s nose pointed upward a little and she crossed her arms.

“That is perfect” I told her with a big smile.

“Temple Grandin has autism you know .” Goldie pressed her lips together and looked out the same window I was looking out of. There, we both saw a world that at the moment was green, and sunny, and full of blue sky.

“Yes, I know. ” I said.

“She has autism like me.”

“Yes, she has autism.”

Goldie didn’t say anything more about the Who is Temple Grandin? Book.

We just stared out the window at the summer day knowing what we knew.

PROM

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The fanciest dress she had ever seen was hers. It was pink and covered with jewels. Goldie immediately spread her arms out and did a small twirl when she found herself inside the dress. Her smile looked bigger and brighter than the Queen of England’s. We combed her hair, added a few rosy touches to her face, and added some extra jewels. 

“Here, are you glass slippers,” I said handing her some sparkling flip flops I had bought for her last summer. She had never worn them before. 

“Mom! They are not glass slippers,” Goldie declares.

“I know but they might as well be.” I said placing them in front of her feet.

Goldie lifted her dress slightly and slipped the flip flops on one by one. She hadn’t worn them once. But they fit perfectly. Just like the ones the fairy godmother had magically appear on Cinderella’s feet. Goldie lifted her dress again and glided over to a chair in front of the window and looked out. Her dress skirt draped perfectly all around her. 

Goldie didn’t look sad. She didn’t look scared or nervous. Her hands rested on her lap. She just looked out into the day that would soon turn into evening. She was still for many silent minutes. 

Goldi had once been so bouncy. She would run through the kitchen, living room, dining room and hallway with some bright green flip flops on and a hot pink tutu.  She would sit on a swing for hours and fly to the sky with bare feet. She would twirl around in her pretend dress up Cinderella dress and then crash to the ground with a belly laugh. Now, she was still. Her head looking out and her eyes looking so intently at a dream.

I stood in the doorway and tried to be as still as Goldie. My heart was keeping me from feeling relaxed as Goldie seemed to be. Seeing Goldie so still was so beautiful. I have seen brides look the same right before they walk down the aisle. My mind wandered out into the day too.

This was the first real Cinderella moment in her life. The first prom that she would attend looking more and more like Cinderella than she had ever before. As a young woman, we have dreams of wearing our Cinderella dresses especially the one that we wear when we are the bride walking down the aisle to our groom. But for Goldie, that moment doesn’t seem possible.

Yet, it does seem possible. Because as she sat there, I did see a bride! Through all of her high school years, her concerts, her classes, her dances, …all those times when things were fancy, something ever so magical was happening – more magic than fairy godmother could do. A miracle was in the works. This Cinderella of mine was getting ready as a bride waiting for her Groom.  One day, He will come, and she will be ready. 

“For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”  Revelation 19:7