Lisa, my two-year-old, and I were walking down the street one day when two women stopped near us. Smiling at Lisa, one said, "Do you know you're a beautiful girl?"
Sighing, Lisa put her hand on her hip and replied, "Yes, I know!"
Embarrassed, I apologized to the ladies, and we headed home. All the way there, I wondered how I was going to handle the situation. Later, I had a talk with Lisa. I said, "When those ladies spoke to you, they were talking about how pretty you are on the outside. It's true you are pretty on the outside -- that's how God made you. But a person needs to be beautiful on the inside too."
As she looked at me uncomprehendingly, I continued. "Being beautiful on the inside is a choice you make, honey, to be good to your parents, to be a good sister and a good friend to the children you play with. You have to care about other people. You need to be loving when someone is in trouble or needs a friend. When you do all those things, you are beautiful on the inside. Do you understand?"
Lisa nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mommy," she said.
Hugging her, I told her I loved her and that I didn't want her to forget what I'd said. The subject never came up again.
Nearly two years later, we enrolled Lisa in a preschool program. In her class was a girl named Jeanna, whose mother had died. Her dad had recently remarried, and Jeanna and her stepmother had a loving relationship.
One day Lisa asked if Jeanna could come over to play, so I made arrangements with her stepmom to take Jeanna home with us the next day. As we were leaving the parking lot, Jeanna asked, "Can we go see my mommy?"
I knew her stepmother was working, so I said, "Sure, do you know how to get there?" Jeanna nodded and, following her directions, I soon found myself driving up the gravel road to the cemetery.
My first thought was, What will her parents think? But it was obvious that visiting her mother's grave was important to her -- and she was trusting me to take her there. After a few minutes, we found a grave with her mother's name on a small marker.
The two little girls solemnly sat down on one side of the grave and I sat on the other. Jeanna talked about how things had been at home in the months before her mother's death, as well as what happened on the day she died. All the while Lisa, with tears on her face, had her arms around Jeanna.
Patting her friend, she said, "Oh, Jeanna, I'm so sorry your mother died."
Finally, Jeanna looked at me and said, "You know, I still love my mommy, and I love my new mommy too."
I realized this conflict was the reason she'd asked to come here. I said, "You know, Jeanna, that's the wonderful thing about love. You never have to take it away from one person to give it to another. There's always enough to go around. It's kind of like a giant rubber band that stretches to surround all the people you care about. It's fine for you to love both your mommies. I'm sure your own mommy is very glad you have a new mommy to love you."
Lisa smiled. We sat for a few moments, then went home. The girls played until Jeanna's stepmother came. I told her what had occurred, and to my relief, she was very understanding and appreciative.
After they left, I picked Lisa up, kissed her cheek, hugged her and told her, "I'm proud of you. You were a wonderful friend to Jeanna this afternoon. It meant alot to her that you cared and felt her sadness."
A pair of lovely, dark brown eyes looked into mine as my daughter asked, "Mommy, was I beautiful on the inside?"
