Sunday, April 01, 2007

I Call Her "Beeba"


My first born. My wise one. She is twenty-one now, an adult, living in an apartment at school. This will be the first summer since she went away to college that she won't be here.

It all hit home when, a few days ago, I found the fortitude to clean up her bedroom, something I've been asking her to do for the past two years. It is not an easy job, and, three days later, I'm still working on it. I have found $53 in bills and coins strewn around the floor. I filled a garbage bag with empty Coke and root beer cans. Apparently, my daughter thought that underwear was disposable, as evidenced by the 15 pair that I found shoved in her closet (yes, I threw them out!) I've found Japanese condoms, incense, a book on Great Sex (yikes!) and her "Chicky Baby" Puffalump (a la Pee Wee's Playhouse) along with elementary school class photos and snaps of friends at Prom.

As I boxed up her treasures, I was struck by the mix of personalities that lived in that room over the past 18 years since we moved to this house. A little girl with her stuffed animals, a lover of dolphins and horses, a magician with her box of tricks, a world-traveler with her Japanese souvenirs, a brilliant writer with her spiral notebooks filled with stories, a young woman with her emerging sexuality, all rolled into my Beeba.

The photo above really sums up how far she's come. A Teddy Bear Bank, given as a baby shower gift, (created by a friend I no longer know,) sitting next to her sushi dishes, boxes of books and DVD's. All of these things give a glimpse of the complex, beautiful young woman she's become. My beloved Beeba.

3 comments:

Deli Boy said...

Now you went and made me cry. Where have all the years gone?

J. A. Blackburn said...

oh wow... I'm scared of this day; the day when they really grow up. :(

Jeanne Rhea said...

What a great post! It is so amazing how complicated our children are and sometimes it does not strike us until they are on their own. I would have had tears in my eyes!