Ordinary Miracles

My girls and I went to see Charlotte's Web today at the movies. What a great movie, you really must see it! I laughed, and sentimental sap that I am, even cried. What kind of goofball cries at a kid's movie? But man, was it touching! And not in the manipulative, make-a-buck way that most movies are these days. Really touching, really sweet, really true. Small Fry looked over at me during Charlotte's final speech and said (loudly!) "Mama, why are you crying?" I whispered, "I just like the movie." She says, "I know you are crying. I hear you sniffing." She kept stealing glances at me suspiciously, as if I was trying to hide something from her (well, I was). I also choked up when Fern showed up in the kitchen wearing the pretty yellow dress her mother had picked out, asking Mama to tie ribbons in her hair. I laughed through tears when Avery teased, you look like a girrrrrrl and she punched him in the arm, saying yeah and you hit like one! I cried again when Fern and Henry Fussy clasped hands and ran toward the ferris wheel. Although I have seen this movie a hundred times and read the book two hundred times, there is just something unspeakably tender about that little girl growing up, just a bit, in the most innocent of ways. Maybe now it's just more poignant to me since I'm relating to Fern not as a peer, but as a daughter of my own.

"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."

"You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die... By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."