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Mommy started thinking
about the moving picture of me that Sandra's mother took, when I
waved good-bye at the last part of the movie, and there were all
the red roses in back of me.
She remembered how I bought the clothes I wore and picked them
carefully, just as I did for my dolls, Robespierre and Baby Snooks.
I never spent too much because I wanted to have money to give to
anyone who really needed it. I bought their socks and hats and a
jacket for Robespierre in a store called Schnaufer's in Towson.
I went in with Mrs. Thomas, my nurse, and she said, "You shopped
wisely, Linda. You got such good quality with your money you saved."
I was very proud of my dolls and the new clothes I bought them.
I liked to save my money and shop for them and for Mommy.
On the last Mother's Day, in 1950, when I went to buy a present,
I made Mommy walk away from me in the store while I bought her present
with my own saved money, with an extra sum for a beautiful package.
Inside were three handkerchiefs with the letter "E" in
different colors-one green, one pink, one blue. I just beamed because
of her happiness when she saw the package!
You see, now I was really grown-up. And when I had to get shots
and be a big girl when I got so very sick, I didn't want to help
myself feel better by making my dolls get shots too!
I did that when I played with Mary Dee, who lived for a few
months at the Chadford. We took a little wooden block and put a
phonograph needle in it, and we gave our dolls shots every time
we bathed them and dressed them. We had Red Cross First Aid Bandages
and cotton out of a little green bottle for the sore places of our
babies. But I never did that to Baby Snooks or to Robespierre.
I guess I was very grown-up when I left because, by Easter
of 1950, I was thinking more and more about other things.
On my last Easter, Mommy and I sat in the car outside a church
and prayed. We both wanted to go in, but we didn't know how.
We were looking at the Sunday paper, the magazine section of
the Baltimore American. It was a story about Golgotha. That
was a barren hill outside the holy city of Jerusalem. The name means
"resembling a skull." It was the Mount of Calvary.
We saw Jesus on the cross, with His Mother weeping. We read
how Jesus was guilty of saying He was the Messiah and was sent to
Pilate to be judged, and how His arrest and crucifixion were ordered
by Pilate. We read how Jesus stumbled and fell with His crossbar
and how Simon lifted His heavy cross upon his own shoulders. We
thought about how His body must have gotten very, very sore with
places rubbed raw and thought how very hard it must have been. Even
the flowers must feel this.
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