My Halloween decorations sit waiting to be stored for another year. The weather is warm and flowers still blooming. The trees are just glorious this year. And, next to me, Emma sits with her tablet making a Christmas list. Just crossing off days.

I was a little girl living back the lane when I made my first list. I found it in some papers from the farm. The printing is that of a very small child. Some letters are large and some are small. All go uphill and downhill like a silly worm that lost sight of the body parts preceding it. That small girl asked for a black baby doll. Yes, I have always been this way. I knew that beauty was in the doll and not the color of it.

Santa certainly read that list for on Christmas Day Amosandra was sleeping dressed in a long yellow gown with blue trim inside of a gray baby buggy. It truly might be the one present I hold most dear. That little doll went to Washington, D.C. and every place else with me.

Years ago I found the doll in a paper bag inside of a dresser in my old room. Being a rubber doll, she had not made the trip through life in good condition. Most of her was so fragile that to touch her she would crumble. Yes, I cried. The tears were those of a little girl who knew how to love with all her heart, saying good bye to her sweet friend.

I don’t know if Mom and Dad realized the gift that they had given me went much deeper into my soul than just the love of a doll. I grew up blind to the color of people. I grew up with a deep love of color and the beauty it possess, the diversity it adds to my life and most of all the richness that happens with the shades of humanity. It was the gift for a lifetime.

Those days of my childhood are crossed off. I now look at my granddaughter and see the child I was so very long ago. I wonder if I have perhaps given her pieces of who she will become. Okay, she wants a hot tub, a horse (I asked for that most years), a trampoline and a playground just to name a few. I don’t know what I give her, but she gives me the reminders of what it was to be a child with hopes and dreams. She gives me words to type and love to express.

We are just crossing off the days from Halloween to Christmas.