Day 2: If Life Was Like a Movie

The first time I ever saw Natalie is almost like the beginning of a film.  If you added embellishment, syrupy music, or sepia toned filters, it would feel just like a lifetime channel movie.   I am promising myself and you to be honest, but this is how I remember it.

Natalie's Grandmother was the remedial reading teacher at my school.  She had the distinction of teaching my brother and my sister to read.  I was never in her class, but I knew who she was on sight.  I went to a small school so you knew who everyone was and they knew who you were too.  In first or second grade I saw a kid I didn't know with the remedial reading teacher.  I thought she was a new student, but someone told me she was the teacher's granddaughter.  I remember dark hair and dark eyes.  Part of me remembers looking through a classroom window and seeing her alone on the swings of the playground.  But part of me wonders if that is just a romantic notion that got stuck in my head at some point.  Regardless, I do remember seeing her with her grandmother. 



In third grade my classroom was right next to the remedial reading room and I remember hearing her grandmother talking about her granddaughter.  I remember wondering about this nameless granddaughter for maybe half of a second and then moving on to thinking about my Barbie dolls or the next time I was getting French fries.  In some ways, these early moments of awareness of her existence seem like fate. One day I was going to know this person and her impact on me would be life changing.