A Story From Long Ago

My friend over at Life in General (my REAL friend - not just a blog friend! isn't that cool!) wrote a story about an Obituary. For some reason it made me think of a little story about Princess Middle daughter back when she was the cute little youngest princess. It went like this....

One day 5 yr old Little Princess wanted to play at her friend's house for a little while so I said yes, the other mom said yes too. We'd meet up later at the library for preschool storytime like we do every Tuesday. Well and good.

I got to the library before my friend did. I walked in without Lexie at my side. I went to the desk and returned her books from the week before, said hello to the librarians and smiled. They didn't smile back. They said "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Schumacher. Are you ok? Anything we can do? We didn't put Lexie's nametag out today but we kept it for you if you'd like to have it." I say "oh, sure! Thanks!" Smile!!!

They look at me like I'm insane. Librarians are funny like that anyway so I didn't give it a thought. I went to sit with the other mommies and wait for my friend to show up with Lexie and her son. The other mommies were all pretty quiet that day. Kind of weird.

The librarian rounds up the kids and herds them into the storytime room. My friend was a bit late. She showed up in a bit though. No big deal. I gave Lexie her nametag and the kids went into the room.

When my friend walked in with Lexie the librarians behind the desk gasped and stopped. Their jaws dropped and their eyes were big as saucers. Again, I didn't think much of it. Librarians are silly like that. I know, because my mother is a librarian.

Then the librarians said "Mrs. Schumacher?" So I turn and go see what they want.... and the Storytime librarian came out of the room and asked one of the mommies to go read. So we have a little pow-wow at the desk. Me... I'm still in a good mood and smiling "What's up?" They are in shock and NOT smiling.

One of them pulls out the paper from that day and opens it up. "Did you read today's Argus Leader?" No. And there it is.... the reason her nametag wasn't out. The reason they looked at me funny. The lack of smiles.

An obituary for a 5 yr old girl named Lexie with our exact same last name. The mother's name was Mary. The librarians were very sad and thought we lost our Lexie.

I bought a copy of the paper and cut out the obit and put it in her baby book. I'm so sad for the other Lexie, but I felt so loved by the librarians because they were truly heartbroken when they thought they lost my Lexie from storytime.