It was the terrible “T” word. 

“I didn’t like school today, Mommy. A girl in my class teased me.” Miranda looked up at me with clear blue eyes, a slight ripple in her forehead indicating a thoughtful frown line would be engraved there someday. It looked like that day was coming sooner than I thought was possible.

I gripped the kitchen counter, resisting the impulse to grab Miranda’s sweater and say, “Who was that bitch? I’ll kill her for you.” Instead, I quietly and calmly asked, “What did she say?”

“She didn’t want to play with me. I asked her and she said, 'No.' It hurt my feelings.”

“Did you tell her?” I asked, trying to understand why some worthless lump of a child wouldn’t want to play with my sparkling, beautiful baby.

"No. She’d just be meaner to me if I told her. Can I have a cookie now, Mommy? Can I watch Pokemon?”

Miranda’s attention span had allowed her to move on. Unlike me, who gave her a cookie, turned on Pokemon, returned to the kitchen, and began crying as memories of childhood meanness paraded in my head.

“Georgie, porgie, pudden and pie. You want to kiss this guy?” I was walking along the playground’s edge as Robert danced in front of me, just out of reach of my leg. I knew better than to respond. To respond invited more taunting. I just kept walking.

“Hey George, did you come from the jungle, do you swing from trees?” My name was full of teasing possibilities that both genders of my classmates loved to use.

“Mommy, mommy? Pokemon’s over now. What’s for dinner?” The angelic voice called me back across the vastness of time.

I kept walking. Though the terrain had been rough at times, it had brought me here to a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter.

“Honey, if someone keeps teasing you, let’s talk to the teacher about it.”

“Okay,” Miranda said. “But what’s for dinner?”

By Georgie Dennison