Thank You For My Friend

Some of you who know me already know this story, but I haven’t written it on this blog. One of my assignments for this week is to write a story about a child who touched my heart. Since I don’t want to use her full name, I’ll call her Shy. She was extremely shy when I first met her and always was around new people. I met her during my internship. It was my second day and the head teacher brought a new girl in the classroom. She had just got done crying. She was two and a half and had never been to preschool before. She brought Shy over to me and we started playing with her baby doll and making a bed for her out of blocks. She only talked a little that day and asked for her mom a few times, but over time we became friends. I’d see her every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few months. Since I became so close with her, they assigned her case to me which meant that I did the observations on her, her assessment and finally the parent teacher conference. After a while, she became less shy and interacted with the other teachers and children more, but I continued to be her favorite person. There are a lot of stories and conversations that I could talk about, but my favorite thing that she ever said was on her last day before she moved.

One day, she was getting ready to leave and all of the sudden she said, “You’re my best friend at school.” I thought that was so great! I told her she was my best friend at school too and I really meant it. She was the best thing about being there. Then on her last day, I gave her a gift. It was a huge gift bag with a few things in it. She was so excited to see the bag. She ran over smiling and laughing. It seemed like she couldn’t believe it was all for her. I knew that she loved her cat so I got her a touch and feel kitten book. She loved the furry texture on the front page. Another gift was a couple of shiny rocks from my childhood rock collection. Shy was very interested in the rocks outside. She liked to feel the textures and look at them. She loved to put the rocks in her pockets. I figured I’d add to her interest by giving her some different rocks. She thank me for the rocks. Her favorite candy was gummy bears so I put two bags of gummy bears in the gift bag. She was so excited about those. She wanted to open them right away. I included a little photo album with a picture of her on St. Patrick’s Day with a mask on and a picture of myself so she’d remember me. She liked the book and it had plenty of pages for her own photos. Finally, I have a unicorn collection and have loved them since my childhood. I have a unicorn necklace that I wear almost everyday and the children always notice it. I decided to get her a plush white and purple unicorn. She called it, “Horsie.” In my mind, I was hoping that later she’d see that unicorn and remember that I gave it to her, but she’s young and she probably won’t remember who got that for her. At least she can cuddle with it or make it apart of her princess play. Every little girl pretends she’s a princess at some point.

Her mother and I were talking and all of the sudden Shy said, “Thank you for my friend.” She meant the unicorn. Then a few minutes later, she said, “Thank you for being my friend.” Then she told me again that I was her best friend at school. It was really sweet how she thanked me for the unicorn and thanked me for being her friend. After she moved, I heard from them once. Shy is in a new school and has a new brother or sister. I don’t know which because I hadn’t heard from them after that. I’d include a picture of her with her unicorn, but I don’t want to put pictures of other people’s kids online out of respect for her and her family.
She left back in 2009, but I still miss Shy and there hasn’t been anyone like her since. She’s one of a kind and I have many great memories of her.