“Say Kindergarten!” Jerry screamed. “Say it, BABY!” “Kid-agarden.” I said, with my congested nose. “HA! You can’t even speak. You’re a baby!” He screamed as he tore my teddy bear from my hands. RIIIIIPP!!! “Here you go, BABY!” He said as he gave me my Cubby Bear head back to me. “Leave her alone!”, screamed my only friend Andi, as she jumped up trying to grab the body of Cubby Bear from Jerry. As the bus pulled up, Jerry threw Cubby’s body onto the ground. I grabbed it and I screamed and cried. “You’re mean!!” I cried as the school bus pulled up to pick us up. I sat on the bus bawling, trying to put the head on the body. It was useless. I was going to bring my favorite bear to school today for show and tell. I got this bear from my dad. It was the only thing he ever gave me. I love Cubby Bear and now he’s headless. Cubby bear isn’t just any boring teddy bear. He is yellow, and he can stick his thumb in his mouth or ears. He even has little freckles, like me. My heart is ripping from my chest. My spirit is dead. I sit on the bus staring out the window, broken-hearted. I can never get another Cubby Bear.
Jerry is a mean 6th grader who is at our bus stop. My sister Emily is home sick today. He only bothers me when she is not around. I put my stuff in my desk and sat there wondering how I would do show and tell now. I am supposed to go first, since I am star of the week.
Mrs. Allen called my name. I was up. I stood up with Cubby’s body in one hand and his head in the other, filling was sticking out of both pieces. My eyes were puffy from crying and I could still feel dampness on my cheeks from the tears drying. I took a breath and I walked to the center of the circle. I tried to keep from crying, but I couldn’t. “I brought Cubby Bear to show. He was ok when we left the house, but at the bus stop, Jerry Spellman ripped his head off!” I was talking and crying. “He said I could not say Kida-garden and he hates me, so he ripped Cubby’s head off. Cubby is a gift from my dad. My dad isn’t around anymore, and I love my bear.” I couldn’t talk anymore, and I sat back down in my spot in the circle. Mrs. Allen said, “I’m so Sorry, Ginger. Your mom will be able to sew his head back on. He will be as good as new. He will be ok.” I just kept crying. No words could fix it. I still feel my heart tearing inside my chest.
I got through my school day, but I didn’t talk much. I usually don’t anyway, but today I didn’t even look at another soul. I sat through recess alone, thinking about why I am being punished. What did I ever do to deserve this?
I’m in 2nd grade, but people think I am in Kindergarten. It’s all because of that one day. If that never happened, I would be normal. I started thinking back to my big seizure. I was 5. I stood under the cherry tree in my grandma’s yard, playing with my friend Andi. It was a very hot day. The kind of day you just sweat standing still. I screamed a long high-pitched scream. All I could see were flashing lights. Nothing else existed. Then all the lights went away and there was blackness. I went to a very weird place. I was walking into a bright light and there were people lined up on both sides of me telling me not to go into the light. “It is so pretty” I kept saying. “No. GO back. Live your long, wonderful life!” They kept saying to me. “Wonderful? This is much better.” I said to them. “Go back. You have to.” I turned around and the next thing I know, I am waking up in the Children’s Hospital. I was scared. Where am I? What happened? They called for my mom. She came running in. “Oh, Ginger, thank goodness you’re ok!” She hugged me over my bed and kissed my cheek. She was crying so hard. I never saw my mom cry like that. I told her about my beautiful light. “It was just a dream, Ginger. You were asleep for quite a few days.” “Days?! How?!” I yelled as I sat up from the bed abruptly. I was attached to a machine, so I didn’t get too far. The nurse laid me back down. My head hurt. My body hurt. “You had a very long seizure, Ginger. It was 40 minutes long. Then, you didn’t wake up. Seizures shouldn’t be over 11 minutes. You are lucky to be alive and without brain damage. Rest, Ginger. You’ve been through a lot.” I was in the hospital for 2 weeks total. It was summer so I didn’t miss any school, but when I got home, I had to get on a new routine of taking medication in the morning and at night.
I snapped out of my daydream about my seizure and I realized I missed everything the teacher was saying. I hope it wasn’t important. I had to get lined up to get on the bus to get home. I grabbed Cubby Bear and carefully put him in my backpack. I got on the bus and hoped my mom could fix him.
I ran in the door of my house and said, “MOM!! PLEASE HELP! Jerry Spellman ripped my Cubby Bear’s head off!” I started crying just thinking about it again. “Oh, honey, WHY? What happened?” “He said I couldn’t say kid-agarden and he ripped it off and laughed at me and called me a baby!” Andi tried to stop him, too but he was too big and too mean. “That is bullying, and I will NOT tolerate that. I am going to call the school and speak with Mr. Brady! This is not going to happen again. Is he mean to you a lot?” “Only when Emily isn’t with me.” I said as my eyes poured tears. “It’ll be ok, Red. I will sew it back on and after I talk to the school, Jerry won’t ever bother you again.” I felt better. “Thank you, mom. He’s just so mean.” I hugged her and went to my bedroom that I share with Emily. In all of my day’s drama, I forgot Emily was sick upstairs! She was sleeping and I quietly tiptoed back out of the room and headed to the kitchen for a drink. We had 1 week left of school and I was counting down the days. Today was a rough day, but most of them are rough.
As I was watching TV, my mom came in and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m sorry it’s been rough for you, sweety. I’m here if you ever need to talk.” She handed me Cubby Bear. His head was all sewn on. You could barely tell it was ripped off. I started bawling again. The tender tone of my mom’s voice, the understanding of my pain, and seeing Cubby Bear made me feel very emotional. I held Cubby Bear tight and cried as I dozed off into the pillow of the couch. I was too tired to take any more of this awful day.
The medicine I have to take is a pain. It makes me sleepy and kind of day-dreamy. I never really feel like I am aware of anything around me. I don’t like food anymore, I feel like screaming one minute and hugging someone the next, my teeth are not growing back in and I think my body stopped growing altogether. I don't have any top teeth. All four of them are gone and I have a big huge hole right in front of my mouth. Everyone makes fun of me. I am toothless, short, red-haired and freckled. I look 5 and I am 9. I try to keep my spirits up, but I am hurting inside. Every day is a constant reminder that I am not like the other kids my age.
Before the seizure, when I was 4. My dad decided to send my sister, mom, and I to Ellington to visit my grandparents. It was 2 hours away from Charleston. We didn’t know it at the time, but while we visited, he decided to burn our house down for money. Had he warned us, we would have removed our most loved items. Nope, we were called after the fire to do a walk-through and see if we could salvage anything. All we got was a smoke-filled cedar chest. My toys, specifically my favorite toy walking dog on a leash, were destroyed. I owned nothing except the things I packed for the trip to my grandparent's house. Because of the fire, we not only visited my grandparent’s house in Ellington, we ended up moving in with them.
Although my grandma wasn’t the cozy, cookie-baking, story-telling grandma, Emily and I entertained each other with dance parties, playing games, and hanging out with friends. Emily has more friends than I do because she is “normal”. I have a best friend—an only friend—Andi. Andi is about 5 inches taller than me and has brownish-blond hair. She is feisty, but never bullies other people. She sure can defend herself in any situation, though! I admire her. I wish I had the guts to be like that! We met in Kindergarten at the bus stop. As usual, I was being picked on during the first day of school. Andi didn’t know me yet but told the two mean kids to stop being mean—then, she came up to me and introduced herself to me and asked if we could play sometime. She is the only person in the world who ever voluntarily tried to be my friend. I mean, I have a sister—but that’s sort of a forced friendship. I love my sister, though. It sure helps to have someone to suffer bad situations with. When things would get boring while living with grandma and grandpa, I always had Emily to hang out with. The library was close, so we also escaped into the literary world of books anytime we had the chance! I could spend hours sitting at my favorite little table, imagining myself in the stories I read. I also loved the fact that I could bring home my books, even if only for a little while. After my dad left, my mom never had a lot of money to spend on anything other than necessities and savings.
My mom always treats me different than Emily. She is not only older, but “normal". When I say “normal”, I mean in the sense of not having any scary medical disabilities. I’m “special” because I’m on medicine. I may have more seizures, so I can’t do anything. “No, Red. No, Red. Sorry but no, Red.” That’s all I hear. I am usually the type of person who will do anything in my power to prove anyone wrong. Don’t tell me I can’t. I will die proving I can. It has been such a rough few years. I used to be so fun and silly. Now all I feel like doing is sleeping and I never ever want to participate in anything with people. I can feel myself slowly starting to dislike others. I am sad, lonely, rejected, and I never feel normal. I look at the little cute blonde girls playing in class with anger. Everyone likes them because they are normal. I bet nobody else’s dad destroyed their home. I bet nobody else is a twitching seizure freak, and surely nobody else looks like an elf with spots like me.
I don’t really remember much before the age of four. I have flashes of little memories, every now and then, but I don’t remember much about my father. I remember sitting outside on cinder blocks watching our house being built. Yes, I am referring to the one my dad ended up burning to the ground. I remember parts of the house, but not all of it. I remember a little closet with restaurant doors that Emily and I used to play in. I loved hiding behind the doors and I loved flinging them open with a tray in my hand, pretending I just slaved over a fancy meal I had to serve to “Queenie”. Emily played “Queenie”, a very picky dining customer in my restaurant. I could never please her and she always wanted her bread as flat as it got, and her glass topped off regularly. It’s all fun and games until your own father burns your house down, and everything in it, including toys, for insurance money—and takes off and hides. I can count on one hand the times I saw my father after that incident.