A Child's Plea

A close friend of mine, who I have known for six years, is one of the brightest people that I have come to know. She is the youngest of four girls. It was around Mother’s Day one year at school when I saw her breakdown. All the students were making Mother’s Day cards for our moms. All of a sudden, she began to cry. Her cry turned into a weep. Her weep turned into a moan. The teacher told her that she could be excuse. So then she gets up and goes to the restroom to clean herself up. It wasn’t until later that I discovered why Jennifer was crying. Her mother had moved out of their house & to this day, has never moved back. “Two days compete for the worst day in my life. The first is the day I was taken from my mother.” As Ashley stated at the very beginning of Three Little Words, being taken away from your mother, can be the worst day of a child’s life. Such as Ashley’s early life, there will always be an empty spot in Jennifer’s life that her mother has not filled. Even though we were in the fifth grade at the time, Jennifer has never been the same since. Through junior high, she was known as the girl who likes attention. Just like Ashley or even Luke for example, Jennifer did whatever was necessary for her to been seen and noticed. Despite her attention span, she is still one of the brightest and intelligent students that I know. She is on many of the sports teams at Proviso East and she is well known for her extremely great academic behavior. As her friend, I still know how difficult it is for Jennifer to go on in life without living with her mother. I think I may be one of the only few people on this earth who tries to fully understand Jennifer & her actions. When she sees that someone genuinely cares for her, she’ll put all her energy into pushing them away. Sounds familiar right? Just as Ashley stated at the beginning of chapter 11, “In the back of my mind I kept wondering what would I have to do to get the Courters to send me back” Just like Ashley, Jennifer has learned how to move on with her life and not blame the world for her trials and tribulations. Even though her mother doesn’t live with her anymore, Jennifer visits her mother every single weekend and stays overnight from Friday to Sunday morning. I wish Jennifer’s mother would’ve been in the same home with Jennifer and her other three daughters. But I can tell by Jennifer’s attitude and personality that those tears have turned into blood and that blood has turned into scars. And now those scars are beginning to heal.