She draws without any reservation. Her bucket is filled to the top with crayons named Cerulean and Tickle Me PInk. In the corner of our living room, she carves out a space, where comfort exists in a piece of paper, her colors, and imagination. The blank page fails to intimidate her. She craves to fill it up. With tenderness. With love. With stick figures.

It was midafternoon on Monday, the markers of ordinary life littered our home. Dishes in the sink, laundry lazing around in the basket, and bills screaming to be paid.  My monotony was interrupted by my daughter’s voice, the pull of her tone, urged me to stop and listen to what she had to say. Her hands held two pictures she drew, one of me and her father, the other of our house, sitting under a rainbow.

A blur took over as I sensed the wetness forming in corner of my eyes. My emotions mimicked the rainbow in her drawing, sunshine and rain melting together. And within these two emotions, a burst of goodness filled my body. It came at the exact right time. My heart angled toward my daughter, as she explained to me, that her Momma and Daddy and her house make her happy.

This moment was something I wanted to hold on to. Everyday she draws at least five pictures for me. They all are in folder near my desk. Everytime she gives me a new picture, I want to preserve that innocence and love in a jar. There will be a day when she tires of this act. I know it. It will be replaced by filling the page, but probably to notes to friends, letters to boyfriends, or her own journal entries.

The colors will be donated and the space in the corner will be a memory I can only recall. But  when I see those stick figures years from now, I’ll be reminded of that burst of goodness that struck me on an otherwise ordinary Monday afternoon.

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Do you have these bursts of goodness? Does your child draw regularly? Are your surprised by what they see? Do their drawings give you comfort?