My Mom Prepared Me for the World
I was just a kid and I remember sitting curled up on my mom’s lap reading specific books. Every time we read the books it was like I had never read or seen them before. They were my favorite books for a reason. I would get into my onesie and run and grab my books that I wanted read to me before bedtime. My mom would sit in the rocking chair and I would get right on top of her and sit down on her lap with my books in my hand. Our home was always warm and welcoming. I would cuddle up against my mother like a cocoon and wait for her to begin another night of reading my favorite books. In those early days with my mother, I didn’t know how one of my favorite books in our stack, The Little Match Girl, would come back to me as I got older.
The first time my mom read The Little Match Girl to me, I couldn’t get enough. We read it hundreds of times. I remember the first time she read it to me like it was just yesterday. It was winter time and I was warm up against my mom like a cocoon. The Little Match Girl starts off on a cold New Year’s Eve night. A young poor girl tries to sell matches that her father had given her to sell. She is afraid to go home because if she does not sell the matches, her father will beat her for not selling them. No one is interested in buying the matches. She shelters herself between a corner of two buildings and sits down with her matches in her hand. She lights her matches for what little heat they can provide. In the glow of the matches she sees several lovely visions in the flickering glow from the matches as the brutal cold of night destroys her body. Some of the visions she encounters include a Christmas tree and a holiday feast. The girl saw a shooting star in the cold night sky and remembers her dead grandmother saying that a falling star means someone is dying and is going to Heaven. As the girl lights the next match she sees her grandmother. She strikes one match after another to keep the vision of her grandmother until she runs out of matches. The little match girl dies and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, people find the child dead in the corner of the two buildings, curled up holding her burnt matches, as if she were in a cocoon of her own. They feel pity for her, although they had not shown kindness to her before her death when she tried selling matches.
I think I enjoyed this book so much because it was so different from my life. This little girl is poor and neglected by her father. She didn’t have a family gathering and a family meal on New Year’s Eve. I was a lucky child and got almost everything I wanted. I had a warm, safe home where my parents loved me dearly. I had a warm home to go to every day after school and I had a warm bed to sleep in. My home was like a cocoon compared to the little match girl. I also think I enjoyed this book so much because it taught me that some kids are not as lucky as I am. That life is a struggle for some kids and to be nice and kind to everyone because you never know what they are going through. The little match girl was similar to me because we were around the same age so I could get the idea of what it would be like being in her position.
To this day I still love The Little Match Girl. I have had so many losses in my life and the ending of the book is almost calming to me. To see that I am not the only one that believes there is a Heaven and that we will all leave this place, guided by a loved one, to a better place. It also reminds me that I am not the only one who has dealt with loss and that I am not alone. My grandfather passed away when I was in the second grade and it was the first loss that I understood and had to actually deal with and go through. He was my hero and losing him was the hardest thing I had to go through and comprehend. I didn’t understand why God took him away from me and how God could hurt my family the way he had. When my mom read me this book after his passing, it helped me cope with my problems and accept them. I believe my mom read this to me before my grandfather’s passing to help prepare me for the future. I also believe that she read this to me after his passing because there is a lesson to be learned from this book. There is comfort in death, comfort from a loved one who has already experienced it and there is a better place, Heaven. Not many believe in Heaven, but I do. That’s probably another reason why I enjoy the book, I can connect to it.
My mom read this book to me night after night, but by her doing this, it caused me to enjoy reading. This book spoke to me in ways I never knew and made me the girl I am today. Books can and do make an impact on a person and without my mom supporting me and encouraging me, by reading to me every night, I never would’ve gotten into reading. My mom taught me to read books I enjoyed, even if I had read them already. I got into reading books for fun and I read more and more the older I got. The older I got the more difficult books I read and the longer the books got. I tried different genres and different authors until I found authors and genres that I really enjoyed. I have read books to try and find a connection that I can get from them like I had with The Little Match Girl. My mom also taught me that there are meanings behind books and to learn from them. Not all my childhood books were wonderful and happy but I think my mom did that to help prepare me for the world. To show me that not all books have happy endings, just like life.
