Spotlight: Jessie

I got Jessie when I married her dad. She was three years old and sort of traumatized. Her mother had left the family a year before and she'd had a mean babysitter.

She was the cutest little thing. The first time I tended her, I told her no for something, candy or something small, and she spouted: "dumb-dumb butthole asshole" and ran into her room. I laughed that a little kid knew those words and cuddled her.

She began to call me Mommy on her own, naturally. She still calls me Mommy. She calls me "Mother" in a deeply condescending tone when we are arguing.

I wouldn't have believed that tiny girl would turn into an Amazon. She's 6' tall now. The picture on the right is her today, with her boyfriend, Jack, who we love.

The picture right is a famous one, sort of. Jessie won a contest when she was eight years old. Kids were encouraged to enter pictures for the Primary Children's Medical Center alphabet block contest. Jessie's mermaid won for the "M" block. 25,000 kids entered this contest. Jessie's picture was in the Children's Friend that year, it's on t-shirts that the hospital gift shop sells, it's in coloring books they give to children waiting for care, it's on blocks all over the hospital. The original picture is framed and on display in the cafateria or the snack shop, I can't remember.

She said when she was the wise old age of ten: "I could make a much better mermaid now."

Jessie and I have been through so much together. I flew to Denver to rescue her from her four year marriage to a beast. I rented a little red mustang, went to her place, called the cops, and stuffed her possessions into the trunk and back seat of that little car and took my girl home. It was a total God thing.

She is the most beautiful, charming, and talented person I know in real life. Her life has not been easy. But she has chosen to be a good person, a giving person, and she lights up a room like nobody I know. She is a gift in my life.