The unique one

What do you say about a pensive middle child, rooter of lost causes?  With deep blue sorrowful eyes and a heart-shaped face framed by unruly dark brown hair, and long slender feet, she preferred to be alone.  While others swam in Dad’s homemade pool, she curled up in a blanket in the house.  While the rest of us ate our vegetables to earn dessert, Coco fell asleep face first in her Brussels sprouts.  While the rest of us played board games, Coco cut out pictures from catalogs and stuck them in manila folders.  She even gathered the remnants of broken Easter egg shells.  She saved each color in a different shoebox. 

She always saw herself differently than the rest of us.

As a stubborn child, she’d flatly refused to count.  Confident that she knew each number, I resorted to trickery.  “What time is it?” I yelled from the living room.  “Tell me the numbers on my bedroom clock.”

The clock displayed a digital readout.  “Two sticks, two polka dots, and three holes — one big one and two little ones.”  She was right — 11:08.  Coco had beaten me at my own game.

The strong willed youngster had refused to clean up her room.  (With an imaginary friend named “Messy Hair,” I shouldn’t have been surprised.)  Her eager smile vanished when the rest of the family went horseback riding (her dream wish) and left her with a sitter.

Upon our return, she hadn’t budged; neither had her toys.  Her lower lip stuck out.  I walked up behind her and grasped her hands.  As a human scoop shovel and operator, we stooped to clasp toys strewn on the floor — like tongs lifting hot dogs out of boiling water.  The scene became one of laughter.  “Okay,” she relented, “I’ll clean my room next time.”  Then she added, “But I’m gonna be in a bad mood.”  (Something she must have heard me say during her birth.)

As a collector, she traveled from secondhand store to secondhand store.  As a young teenager, the clatter on the kitchen floor of red and black plaid de-spiked golf shoes was too much.  Then there was the vintage dress that made her look like a giant bashful Tweety Bird, in bright yellow crepe, covered with a layer of bright yellow sheer voile fabric.

But she always knew what she wanted to be.  When everyone else in the family participated in sports, Coco sat outside in the dirt in one of her frilly “beauty” dresses and dug holes. 

Her heart grew at the same rate as her feet.  Many years before, I’d stood in the back of a theater showing The Fox and the Hound with a fussy baby.  The fox and the hound had gone their separate ways and now confronted each other as enemies.  Who’s that little girl crying so loudly? I’d wondered.  Why isn’t her mother caring for her?  Cheezy quieted and I’d walked to the front of the theater.  The wails emanated from a three-year-old Coco, sitting between her older brother and sister.

As a adult, the little girl who had once taken the plight of the underdog returned.  She took in a stray kitten and nursed it back to health, using her grocery money to take it to the vet.  As an young adult, she worked part-time at a nursing home for mentally disabled adults.  One young man’s Christmas list particularly touched her.  He listed the three gifts he most wanted — a pack of cigarettes, a CD by Hootie and the Blowfish, and her. 

When she finally graduated from college, a capitalized department acronym for each student was printed next to the graduate’s name.  Her name was followed by “, HOR.” 

Coco loved the shock value.  “Is that why you picked Horticulture as your major?” I laughed.

She smiled that perfect smile on her heart-shaped face, “You guessed it.”

Happy Birthday, Coco.  Unique is special.

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