Sweetie Pie

My grandson, Derek, was only four years old when he lost his mother to a dreaded disease. He was my daughter, Judy’s baby, and they'd been very close. He called her “Sweetie Pie.”

Not many days after her funeral he called his Aunt Vicki, his mother’s sister. “It's Mom's day at school, Aunt Vicki. Can you come and go with me and be my Mom?”

“Of course I can,” she said lovingly.

“And can we pick up the other kids like Sweetie Pie used to do?”

“Of course. You show me where they live and we'll pick them up.”

Derek had been close to his Aunt Vicki. His mother had ‘shared’ him with her sister from the time he was born. When his Mom had to go out of town, it was Aunt Vicki that he stayed with. However, Aunt Vicki lived thirty miles away and couldn't see him as often as she wanted to.

Anxious to be his substitute mom, Vicki drove the distance and picked Derek up at his house. He showed her where to pick up the other children. It was Pre-School Mom's Day.

As they gathered into the car, one of them said as honestly and outspoken as only children can be, “Derek it is so sad that you haven't got your mother with you for Mom's Day.”

“But I do have her with me,” he answered confidently, with a kind of inner glow.

“Oh, no you haven't,” one of the children persisted.

“No,” another added. “Your mom's dead. We saw them put her in the ground.”

“Oh,” he said brushing off the comment. “That wasn't her,” (he couldn't say his “r's”). “That was just her body. Her spiit [spirit] is still alive and she goes with me everywhere. She’s always with me, every place I go!”

The eyes of Derek’s friends were wide with admiration. “Oh,” they exclaimed in wonderment. “How neat! She goes every place with you?”

“Sure. You can't see her spiit, but she's with me all the time,“ Derek smiled as his friends looked at him as if he was superman. And the way he strutted with pride, with his Aunt Vicki beside him as they entered the schoolroom, no one doubted what he’d said or felt.

[Pictured: Vicki and her little sister, “Sweetie Pie,” as children]