There was a couple who came to town one day, set up a blanket on the sidewalk and did hair braids and sold trinkets on the avenue by the other street vendors. They had 2 or 3 ( my memory is dim with the passage of time) little girls who were just the greatest. I met them in the park one day and offered to let the girls stay in the park with me while their parents worked the street.
The girls and I played in the park and I told them stories and taught them songs. I taught them the songs of my childhood: My Bonnie lies over the ocean, You are my Sunshine, The hole in the bottom of the Sea, Little Bunnie Foo Foo, Ain't got a barrel of Money, etc...
We hung out for weeks before they moved on to Colorado in their big white school bus or where ever it was that they were headed to next.
A while later (time has no meaning on the street - it could have been a few months, it could have been a year) I saw the bus coming down the street. It parked and out came the girls running to meet me. I was surprised they remembered me and the parents said "how could they forget, the girls sang every song you taught them every single day".
They were only staying for a week or so, but invited me to stay in the bus with them. The girls started calling me Auntie Barbara and begged me to come live with them when they left. They offered to share one bed of the bunk beds and said I could have the other one. Their parents added their offer to that one - said I was welcome to come with them.
I declined, but I often wonder what path my life would have taken if I had gone with them.
[homeless][children]
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I saw a movie last weekend, Island on Bird Street, where the boy chose to hide in the Polish Ghetto instead of going with the family. I often wonder what would have been the result of different choices. Couldn't tell you.
I wonder if the girls' joy at seeing you is evoked in your heart by the girls in your present life.
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