Curriculum and Learning Resources

Gina
Carol Farley
UU Congregation of Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

One wind-blowy, white-snowy day, I bundled up and tromped next door to visit a new neighbor. I wanted to see if the girl who was moving in could help me make a snowman next to the big tree in her yard.

"I'm Gina," she told me. "Wish I could, but I can't because I'm so old."

I stared at her. "You're not old. Bet I'm older than you are!"

Then Gina laughed so hard she had to stamp her feet to stomp the giggles out.

"She said it's so COLD," her mother said. "Gina can't play outside when it's this cold because she's so special. She can't do all the things other kids do, but she can still be your friend."

"Hey! I know what! I can help you with that snowman" Gina hurried off and came back with a big brown bag. "You can use all this stuff for it."

So I did. The bag held a hula skirt, paper flowers, a cucumber, two yellow tennis balls and a whole bunch of ribbons. I thought the snowman looked dumb when I finished, but Gina laughed and clapped her hands as she looked out the window.

That winter we had lots of fun. In school Gina was the best speller in the class. Pretty soon she knew all the state capitals and the kids said she was the smartest one in the whole school. During recess, when she couldn't go out, she painted pictures on the music room walls. She drew butterflies and unicorns and dinosaurs, and all of them were singing.

Some days there was so much snow that we couldn't go to school.

"Let's have a White-out Day here at home," Gina said one time. So that day we ate only white stuff. We ate the outside of eggs, the inside of apples, bread without crusts, and vanilla ice cream. Gina ate cauliflower, too, but I told her I wouldn't do that because I didn't like it.

"When you're in trouble, call a policeman," she said. "But when you want to eat something good, cauliflower." Then she giggled so much she made me laugh too.

Sometimes we made popcorn and strung it out on yarn. Then I would wrap it all around the big tree in Gina's yard. So many birds would come that soon the snow would be covered with noisy, moving colors: red, blue, black, brown. One time she told me she saw a yellow bird with a purple head. "I think it's called a Yellow Purple Burple," she said. Then she wiggled her eyebrows, and it made me laugh so much that her mother came into the kitchen to see what was so funny.

Then the snow melted and winter was over.

One flower-popping, bird-hopping day I went over to Gina's without wearing a jacket. Tulips and daffodils were poking through the dirt in her yard, and there was a nest in the big tree. The air smelled good, like mud, and I felt so happy I wanted to turn cartwheels. The sun was bright that morning. But by late afternoon it was raining, and a rainbow stretched across the sky.

"Let's make a rainbow for my bedroom!" Gina said. So her mother strung up a big volleyball net right up close to the ceiling. Gina and I crumbled up sheets of colored tissue paper and packed the bunches up in lines inside the net. Red turned to yellow and then to pink and blue. Gina plopped on her bed and looked up and said, "Now every morning when I wake up, I'll see a beautiful rainbow."

"So where's the pot of gold?" I asked, but Gina only rolled her eyes.

Her eyes got real big when I visited her at the hospital a few days later. I brought a whole bunch of tissue paper. I wanted to make a rainbow for her bed there, but she said other kids were a lot sicker than she was, so we made a rainbow for the hallway.

"Let's make gifts for the ladies at the rest home," she told me one April day when she was home again. "Mother's Day is coming soon." So we made potholders with strips of rags. Hers were all neat and nice but mine were all bumpy and lumpy. I kept saying that the ladies in the rest home didn't need potholders because none of them cooked any more, but Gina said they would love them.

I was right. The ladies didn't cook any more because they each lived in just one little room. But they still used the potholders. They used them for doilies for their plants or pads for their coffee cups or hangings for their walls. "See? I was right," Gina told me as we left there. "They loved those gifts!"

Then the days grew warmer because spring was over. One beach-going, boat-rowing day I went over to Gina's and I saw a big trampoline in her yard. "Mom thinks jumping on this will be good for me," she said. "Help me breathe better." So she bounced a little bit and coughed a whole lot.

When she went to a special camp, I used the trampoline every day. Soon I was flipping and turning and flying almost as high as the nest in the big tree. But when Gina came home, I didn't do that any more and I just watched her jump a little bit and I told her I thought that she was as good as an acrobat in a circus.

Her mother took us to the beach whenever Gina felt good enough. Some days we rowed around the lake in a boat, but Gina wouldn't use the paddles. She said she was afraid she might hit a turtle or a fish. I said that was a dumb idea, but she still wouldn't do it. One day we made a huge castle in the sand. It had windows and flags and little stick people. When the waves came ashore and washed the castle away, I was mad. But Gina wasn't. "The pictures are in my head," she told me. "So I'll never lose our castle."

We found rocks near the beach, so we took them home and Gina painted pictures of flowers and butterflies and unicorns on them. The pictures were so beautiful that her mother said we should sell the rocks as paperweights. So we set up a stand near the big tree. I wanted to charge a whole lot of money but Gina gave them away free. Soon we had lots of happy people but no money.

Then the days got shorter and summer was over.

One leaf-falling, duck-calling day, I went over to Gina's to talk about Halloween. "I'll be a pirate," I said. "What'll you be?" But she said she wanted to surprise me.

"I'll give you a clue, though," she told me. "Mom is blowing up lots of big purple balloons. And I'm wearing green tights on my skinny skinny legs."

I really laughed the day before Halloween. Gina was a bunch of grapes! "See?" she said. "My legs are the stems and the balloons are the grapes." I thought she would win the prize for the best costume the next day, but she was too sick to go to school. So I told the class all about her costume and they voted her the winner even if she wasn't there.

"I should have dressed like a yo-yo," she told me the next day when I saw her at the hospital. "I go in and out of here the way a yo-yo spins on a string."

So I bought her a yo-yo and we had fun spinning it and making it jump. I tried to keep it going the longest, but Gina always beat me.

Soon almost all the leaves from the big tree had fallen to the ground. Now Gina used a wheelchair when she was home and we went outside. "Listen when I run over the leaves," she told me. "Doesn't it sound like they're whispering?"

"Sounds more like they're shouting, " I told her. "LEAF me alone!"

"You're crazy," Gina said, but she giggled as she talked.

Then the trees were all bare and autumn was over.

Gina didn't go to school any more, but I brought her schoolwork home for her. I would wave and make faces when I passed her window in the morning. When I brought the stuff from the teacher, she would be waiting for me by the window in her wheelchair.

Then one wind-blowy, white-snowy day her wheelchair was empty and her mother was crying. I thought maybe Gina had gone to the hospital again, but her mother shook her head. "Gina's gone forever," she told me. "She can't be with you any more."

But she was wrong. Gina is with me all right. I see her whenever I see a rainbow or a flower, a butterfly or a bird. She's right beside me whenever I pass the home where the old ladies live or whenever I see pictures of castles or unicorns. I hear her giggles in the rustle of leaves and the songs of birds. I feel her close whenever I see the big tree in her yard or whenever I think of painted rocks or happy people. Her face is in my head and her thoughts are in my heart.

I know this absolute sure.

Gina will always be with me.