My six-year-old granddaughter, Caitlynd,
discovered a small freckle on her upper left arm
and tried to scratch it off. When I asked her what
she was doing, she burst out crying, "I have a
thing on my arm and I can't get if off."
"Oh sweetheart," I replied, scooping her up in my
arms. "That's a beauty mark. Don't pick at it.
You're making your skin all red and it's going to
be sore."
She stopped crying long enough to take another
look at it. "It's not a beauty mark. It's weird and I
want it off," she replied with a huff and another
outburst of tears.
I dried her tears and rocked her and did what
Grammy's often do, fly by the seat of their pants
and hope they sound wise. "Each of us are born
with special marks. Some of them can be seen
and some of them are invisible."
"What kind of mark is invisible?" she asked.
"Well.... a mark of kindness, a mark of generosity,
even the mark of a loving heart. We can't see
them, but they are all very special marks."
"Why can't mine all be invisible? I don't want one
you can see," she said, sounding very put out.
"I can see many of your special marks. Not just
that one. The color of your eyes, the shape of your
nose, the sound of your laughter. Nobody else in
the whole world has those exact things. Only you.
Special marks, inside and out, are the things that
make each of us different and special people."
She didn't buy my explanation completely, but she
stopped worrying about her 'beauty mark' for the
moment and promised to stop scratching at it.
She jumped of my lap, pulled the book 'Pinnochio'
out of her overnight bag and asked me to read it
to her.
The next morning, Caitlynd came running into the
kitchen. "I LIKE my beauty mark Grammy!" I was
delighted by her change of heart and relished the
feeling of having a 'proud Grammy' moment. She
jumped into my husband's lap. "I have a beauty
mark Papa. Want to see it?"
"I sure do," my husband laughed.
"I didn't like it before, but now I do."
"Grammy told me how sad you were when you
found your beauty mark. What changed your
mind?" my husband asked, giving me a wink.
"I had a dream that I was telling a whole bunch
of lies and every time I told a lie my beauty mark
would grow. And it growed and growed and
growed all the way down to the ground and I
stepped on it by accident and it hurt really bad
and Grammy said, "I told you not to pick at it"."
Ousted by a little wooden puppet!
My puffed-up 'Grammy moment' disappeared
and a kitchen full of laughter took its place.
