Getting Grown by Will Mayo

 Getting Grown

by

Will Mayo

"What do you want for your birthday?" my mother asked my sister in the way back when.

"Nothing!" my sister replied. "It's ridiculous to keep giving me presents. I'm all grown up. I'm soon to be 12 years old. I'm a member of the Girls' Scouts. I've sold cookies, for God's sake!"

"Well then," my mother said with a slight smile. You're all grown up. But in our family we give each other gifts to show our love. So what do you want to do?"

"Just give me the money you would normally spend on presents," my sister said.

"How much do you think you need?" my mother asked.

"10 dollars," my sister said. "With 10 dollars a girl can buy all that she could ever need." Indeed, in those long gone days of the 1960s 10 dollars seemed a whole world of money to us kids.

"Very well," my mother said. And she handed my sister the ten dollars.

All that week my mother drove about our country town with me in her car, keeping an eye on her daughter as she wandered from store to store with her precious ten dollar bill. My sister seemed an especially lonely but determined figure out there on those streets.

The night of my sister's birthday the food was plentiful but there were no presents as was her request. Afterwards we could all hear her tossing and turning against the darkness. Eventually, we all slept.

When Christmas came around immediately following my sister's birthday the gifts were especially bountiful that year of 1967. My mother made sure of that. For grown that her children might be they were still her kids. And always would be.

From his book:

Dreams of Magnolia