Olivia

It's early morning and the house lays still and dark. I look out our tall rectangle windows onto the frosted white ground lighted by the flickering lamppost. The cold makes my world look blue. Soft sounds of the sleeping echo through the house. I am on the sixth day of sickness and feeling so very tired. Yet, I can't sleep. I think on my 2nd child Olivia. A teen now. I laugh to myself as I think of her when she was just a littlie. The author of "Olivia the Pig" may as well used her as his inspiration as she was every bit that way. Dancing through life with her own set of drums. Somewhere, by growing older, she lost some of that but on good days I still see it peeking through. She loves me as do the other children but she needs me more then they do. I get glimpses of me in her as a teenager. I laugh to think what I must of put my parents through all the energy and emotion of loving life. There are moments when I fully realize how so lucky I am to be around such an insightful and intelligent being. When she was little she had curly hair made of sunshine and was always abit smaller then others. Driving her to school when she was in 1st grade, she observed that the suns' rays looked like angels spreading out from Heavenly Father.(She was always saying things such as that.) She would worry that I would die before she grew. She loved bugs. She always had a rollie-pollie in her hands or a lady bug crawling on her little arm. Her favorite painting was "Starry Night". She loved everything animal. One day her love for animals changed her eating habits. She was 5 or 6 and as we enjoyed a homemade hamburger her inquisitive mind starting asking questions about the food placed before her. Upon learning that "cow candy" (tradition of calling hamburgers thanks to my dad) was really meat from a cow made this little bottle of sunshine a vegetarian from that moment on. Memories rush forward reminding me how, at every meal, she would inquire if there was "meat" in it regardless what it was............salad, pasta, etc. I see her growing into a wonderful adult. I hear the rumbles of the train in the distance and realize, I am tired. But I think how lucky I am to have an Olivia in my life. Everyone should have one. Especially if she is anything like mine. Go and do.