The Birthday Girl

“Happy Birthday!”

Everyone screamed cheerfully.

Tears flooded Jackie’s eyes, streaked down her rose blushed cheeks, and dripped onto her purple and white lace dress. She smiled gleefully, full of embarrassment and joy, elation and repulsion at being the center of attention. Looking down at her dress, Jackie petted it nervously.

“Okay, Jackie, go take your seat,” the teacher said. “Everyone take out your pencils and turn to page…”

As I sit here, writing in my journal, the tears are streaking down my own face now, dripping on these yellowed pages in the dim lamp light. If I could go back, I would throw her a birthday party every day to tell her how precious she was to us all. I never recalled what the lesson was that day—I only ever remember that little moment when the small embarrassed girl, shy as could be, teared up at finally being accepted by the class, only to melt back into the periphery of the ordinary. She was our shy, little wild rose.

Her seat was empty the next day, and the next, and the day after that. The corner seat in the back of the room didn’t stay empty though. Her seat began to fill with doodles of roses and carnations and ferns and stars. The students adorned the chair with little glass and plastic jewels of hearts, diamonds, and glitter. The winter holidays came and went, and the chair grew in adornments seemingly of its own accord, every day some grand gesture was paid to the seat of a girl with no knowledge of the love we shared for her.

Every year I write in my journal on her birthday, and the pages have yellowed, but every year I write Happy Birthday one more time.