Meet Sadie

            There is an injustice that our earliest and most influential memories are also the ones we struggle the hardest to remember as adults.  The people and events that mold us as children into the adults we become are the first memories we lose.  That is what led me to sit down and interview my daughter Sadie.  She is in the middle of what may very well be the most instrumental year of her life and I want to capture what I can.  I know I can’t bottle all of her memories up into a fifteen minute interview.  But maybe, years down the road, she can look back and see her five year old self and remember where it all started.

            Sadie is like most five year olds, in that what her attention span lacks she more than makes up for in energy.  Her last year has been pretty eventful.  She started kindergarten this year and even occasionally rides the bus to and from school.  This December, just before Christmas, Sadie lost her grandmother.  They were very close and Sadie mentions her several times throughout the interview.

            She begins by talking about a school project where they make number bracelets.  They are currently on the number five bracelet, an amazing coincidence considering she is five years old and rides bus number five.  Her favorite food is oatmeal, but that is subject to change at a moment’s notice.  When asked where in the world she would like to travel to, she answers without hesitation “Florida”.  Her recent infatuation with Florida is directly tied to her love of everything Disney.

            The interview takes an interesting turn when she is asked what she wants to be when she grows up.  She concludes that she wants to be a nurse just like her mother.  When asked why she wouldn’t want to be a doctor instead she says “Doctors are really for boys and nurses are for girls”.  Even after being told that isn’t the case, Sadie concludes that she still wants to be a nurse just like her mommy.  It is worth noting that Sadie is also very stubborn like her mother.

            When asked about the best part of her year she responds “Easter, the last Easter that grandma gotted to have”.  This is the first reference to her deceased grandmother.  The Easter she fondly recalls was a family get-together in Kansas, and one of the last days Sadie spent with her Nana.  When asked to name some of the bad parts to her year Sadie paused to consider, then replied “sometimes people be mean to me at school”.  She goes on to talk about a boy that used to be at her recess table named Colton that says mean stuff to her.  Sadie stresses the importance of people being nice to each other.

            After discussing the importance of being nice Sadie explains how her school rewards random acts of kindness.  If a student performs a random act of kindness they get to wear a “kindness medalie”, I have to assume she meant kindness medallion.  She has received that honor three times this school year.  Once for helping a student up that fell to the ground and another time when a student accidentally smashed their finger.  The third time she couldn’t remember.

            The conversation was then steered (rather forcefully) into the subject of her doing anything bad this last year.  After some coaxing she admitted that she stole a tube of ChapStick from Wal-Mart.  The memory is a difficult one for her.  Once it was discovered she stole from the store, it was decided that the next day we would return and she would confess to her crime.  After a restless night she did just that, and even paid for the stolen merchandise with her own money.  It was a difficult lesson to learn, but hopefully one she will remember for a long time to come.

            The subject of holidays came up and Sadie listed her favorites as Christmas, Easter, and Valentine’s Day.  Her favorite part of Christmas was the cupcake maker Santa got her.  When the day comes that she stops believing in Santa, we will have to tell her that the gift was actually from her Nana.  She says that the worst part of Christmas was that her grandma couldn’t come.  This was significant because, as Sadie puts it, “It was the first day without her being with us on a holiday”.  From here Sadie talks about her favorite memories with her grandma.  She states her Nana was great because “She did everything for me”.  Her face lights up as she talks about playing on Nana’s laptop and she smiles as she remembers the princess play they went to.

            This is a good point to confess my ulterior motive in doing this interview.  My true goal was to capture Sadie’s love and memories of her grandmother on tape.  After the funeral everyone commented that in a few years she would forget all about her Nana.  They said it like it was a good thing, like forgetting about her would make everything better.  I don’t want that.  I don’t want her to ever forget that for the first five years of her life she had the best grandmother on the planet.  And should her memories ever fade, all she needs to do is watch her interview and see how her face shines when she talks about her Nana.