A Picture Worth a Thousand
Memories
Written March 2003, Updated June 2003
I was bored one day.
It was a teacher workday, so I had off but my father didn’t. My mother was
dead. I had nothing to do…
So I went to take a walk. I walked as far as I could,
until I had to stop. I sat down, and took out the book that I had under my
arm and started to read. A little girl—about eight-years-old or so, though
she was as tall as I was—came up to me from nowhere while I was reading and
sat down next to me. When I got up again, she started to follow me. I let
her, thinking nothing much of it. Five minutes later I looked back and she
was still there.
I turned around to face her. “Why are you following me?”
I asked her.
“Following you?” she asked with a sweet look on her face.
“Yes, following me.”
“Yes, following you.”
“We’ve established that. What are you doing?”
“I am doing.”
“Are you going to be annoying?”
“I am going to be annoying.”
I gave up on her. I turned around, and started jogging
down the dirt road. Luckily for me, there was no mud. Five minutes later,
I looked behind me.
She was still there.
“Why are you following me?”
“Following you?”
“Yes, following me.”
“Yes, following you.”
“We’ve established that. What are you doing?”
“I am doing.”
“Are you going to be annoying?”
“I am going to be annoying.”
I picked up the pace and ran for five minutes. I looked
behind me.
She was still there.
“Why are you following me?”
“Following you?”
“Yes, following me.”
“Yes, following you.”
“We’ve established that. What are you doing?”
“I am doing.”
“Are you going to be annoying?”
“I am going to be annoying.”
I turned around and fled. I ran down that road at top
speed for as long as I could. When I had to slow down, I looked behind me.
She was still there.
“What do you want?” I asked her impatiently.
“What do I want?” she replied.
“Yes! What do you want?”
“I want to be with you.”
That caught me off guard. “What?”
“You’re my sister!”
“Excuse me?” What was she talking about? I had no siblings.
I’d never even met her before. How could I be her sister?
She pointed to a photograph in her hand. In it was what must
have been her at the age of four. Red hair was tied back in a French braid,
and her blue eyes were focused on a girl sitting under a tree with her—a
girl with mouse-brown hair down to her waist and hazel eyes. She was short
and skinny. Freckles covered her face, and her face was bent over a picture
book as she read it aloud to the four-year-old.
I grabbed the photograph from the girl. I flipped it over. “Elizabeth
and Rosa, September 1998,” it read.
“But my name is Abby…” I said.
“No, Rosa,” Elizabeth said. “You’re Rosa Leigh Shaw.”
“I’m Abby.”
“You’re Rosa.”
“I’m Abby,” I said again. But the more I said it, the less I
believed it. I was still looking at the picture. The two little girls under
the tree, sisters sharing a quality moment. I remembered that moment. It
was nice out, and I couldn’t stand being inside. I wanted to read in the
fresh autumn air, and my mother made me bring my sister out with me. I plopped
her down next to me and started to read—the first of many such times.
Memories rushed at me. Apple-picking. Sitting on my father’s
lap as he played piano. Putting sprinkles on cookies my mother and I had
made. The tree. The maple tree that I wanted more than anything to climb.
I was told not to, but I climbed it anyway. A branch snapped under me, and
I fell. The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital. I didn’t know who I was.
I was told I was Abigail Lynn Bradley.
But I wasn’t. That picture was worth a thousand memories.
It showed me who I was.
“You’re Elizabeth…” I said slowly.
“Yep!” Elizabeth said.
“And I’m Rosa…”
“Uh huh!” she said enthusiastically.
I smiled at her. If there was anything I could trust more than
my own memory, it was this innocent child who had to chase after her sister
in order to show her who she really was. “Take me home,” I said. “I want
to see Mom and Dad.”