Paper #2
She was a shy little girl, only eight years old, with medium length brown wispy hair, deep questioning brown eyes, a few freckles splattered across her upturned nose and nicely formed lips that wouldn't stay closed without great effort. Being shy is one thing, but to have buckteeth or as some kids would call it, "Bugs Bunny" teeth are what little Kay had.
This isn't really what Jemia Kay was all about. She loved to play Barbie dolls, pretend she was a grocery store worker, and despite her weaknesses in school academics, had a thirst for drawing cartoon characters from coloring books. She happily displayed these pictures on her walls and would sometimes venture out of her room to show her mother her pictures in hopes that she would be praised for her outstanding triumph in drawing.
Jemia Kay really didn't get much attention from her teachers or her parents; I don't mean that these people were mean to her, but that they didn't really treat her as a person with great potential, after all, she really didn't show that much promise when it came to academic performance.
One day the teacher invited a guest to give a presentation on how to prevent forest fires with Smokey the Bear. It was your typical treatment of fire safety that covered such topics as playing with matches, how to "stop, drop and roll" and your other basic fire safety rules. Of Course, Smokey the Bear, the guest's mascot, was a big influence on kids back then. He seemed so wise and kind with his wet black nose, big brown chocolate eyes and his great wide paws.
The all-wise teacher announced there would be a contest to see who could present the best project on forest fire prevention. Shy, little Kay knew that she could do this; not just make a project, but to really help Smokey the Bear in fire prevention.
Once she arrived home, she went to work right away. This little girl dug through the clutter of boxes and bags in the tiny dark garage and found two shallow boxes she thought she could use. She immediately walked through her large backyard and collected dried grass and twigs and then resolutely marched through her house and collected used up matches that she found near her parents ashtrays; there was no harm in her looking for matches because she knew that Smokey the Bear wouldn't ever want her to play with them, and play this was not. This was serious business.
In an ever so delicate manner, she carefully glued the two shallow boxes together side by side. She labeled one side, This and the other side Or This? The project was slowly piecing together, her nicely formed lips began to form a smile as she patiently and carefully glued little stick trees on the This side of her box. It wasn't long before Jemia Kay raided her mother's cosmetic bag and found a handful of fluffy white cotton balls, which suddenly became healthy happy cottony trees for her forest. She patiently and lovingly glued each cotton ball to a stick, and then sprayed her newfound forest of trees with a light splatter of forest green paint. Her box had suddenly become a cottony forest that even Smokey would be proud of.
The other side of the box quickly turned into the dead and blackened aftermath of a deadly forest fire. She layered the box with the dried grass and broken twigs she had gathered from her yard. She placed the used matches within the forest as an announcement to the world, "See what happens when you play with matches?"
Jemia Kay was, well, let's just say that she was proud of her project. It wasn't just the kind of proud that says, "See what I can do?" But, it was the kind of proud that says, "I'm not just the shy little buck tooth girl that has proved herself", but it was the proud that is, courageous, smart, full of possibilities and even more than that, a proud that says, "I'm happy with who I am."
The blue ribbon was carefully placed upon her creation as she carefully posed for the picture in her well-worn fur coat. She looked at her project, looked at the camera and then a sweet smile formed across her face.
Even to this day, when Kay browses through her album of the past, she pauses at the page where she was a little, shy, freckled face girl with buck teeth, who proved to herself that she was and still is smart, courageous, happy with herself and full of possibilities.
While Jemia waits patiently for the guest speaker to arrive in her classroom, she
smiles with confidence as she looks upon her students; the children, who are shy, imperfect, smart and filled with possibilities and quietly says, "I'm proud of you."