!9 Dollars

While I was walking by the office, I saw one of my favorite second grader's bouncy brown hair fly past me.

"Brianna!" I called out.

She stopped, turned around, and I noticed a red bump on her forehead.

"Sydney hit me with the broom by accident."

I quickly went to the freezer to get Brianna some ice for her head, and to sit and chat with her for awhile.

I asked her what she did this weekend.

"Well, Saturday we went to a birthday party for my brother Michael, umm Miguel's, friend's baby. There was a jumpy thing, but while all the kids was jumping in it a dog ran in and it got a hole in it and then we had to blow it back up and patch it and then we kept going. And then Sunday we went to church we seen my Aunt (the woman I wrote about a few posts down) but my Mom called to her and she didn't answer and they've been fighting for awhile cause Auntie got Grandpa's house, and he and my grandma had to go back to Mexico but my mom wants to sell the house cause she only has 19 dollars for the rest of the month."

Brianna is one of seven children.

I tried to hold it together as Brianna asked me what I did for the weekend. I told her I went on a retreat to learn about simple living and not spending more money than I had to, and being a good steward of resources to help the world....to help her family, and my family, and all the people at St. Ann school, and all over.

I told her it was very important that she learn as much as she could because no one can ever take away her mind. They can take away her clothes, her house, her money, but not her mind. This was what my grandfather, a child of the Great Depression, told me when I was very young.


I told her she was lucky to have a mom who loved her so much, and that she should always remember that she is beautiful and unique and that with the love of her family, things would be ok..even when they were hard.