One summer, my youngest daughter accompanied me for a month away from her friends and familiarity. She was/is an active girl with a penchant for planning. We rode bikes, and waves, and played tennis. But she needed something more. I suggested she start a dog walking business. A generous older couple employed her.
For one month she arose early, on her own, took the elevator to the penthouse and walked a little poodle. Every morning. She earned quite a bit of money and even a bonus for her work.
She'd earned the money on her own, I had to let her spend it how she wanted.
In the one island candy and toy store, she found a fun collectible: Groovy Girls. They were soft dolls with yarn hair, noticeable for their multi ethnicities. They came with motor scooters, beds, and a house.
Her fascination and play with the dolls didn't last long, but she hung on to them. I suggested giving them away several times, but the tween girl had a vision. She wanted to save them for her daughter.
I couldn't argue with that and so for twenty-two years, the Groovy Girls waited in Paloma's closet.
When her little one turned two, she took them home. A big box of memories.
Her daughter took right to them. Her imagination straddled the dolls on their scooters and laid them in their beds. Once when I was visiting, she dragged and carried all by herself the big box of Groovy Girls into the living room.
Just yesterday, after dinner, we went swimming for the second time that day. The sun was going down, half the pool was shaded, and it was just that perfect time of day when the world begins to quiet.
Little Cove tossed a plastic doll towards her mother, and then they raced each other to the spot, her mother playfully threatening to get to the doll first. Cove was laughing hysterically. It appeared that she'd never raced her mother to reach and grab a toy from the water.
And then Cove would order us to the other side of the pool, so she could swim on her own--but she can't swim on her own.
Who is this little girl? I wondered.
"We couldn't have dreamed of who she is and that she would be with us now," I said to my daughter.
She had to agree. This mysterious, joyful, little person couldn't have been imagined.
But then I remembered the Groovy Girls. Saved for twenty-two years. The premonition had come to fruition.
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