May 21, 1931
She looked through the window at her family home. Her mother and brothers worked outside in the hot sun, to get in crops to feed the family, and maybe to sell. The money her father had worked so hard to save was almost gone, and the worry lines on her mother’s face were etched in dust, deeper and deeper every year like the lines made by the plow. Back there was hard work at home and hard work at school, where she never excelled either. There was stress, worry, sadness. The empty feeling she got every night after dinner when she thought of how her father used to tell stories before bed. Now there was silence. No one wanted to talk, because they were all thinking about how much they missed him and they did not want to remind mother. Even though they knew she was right there with them in the pain, missing him every second. But she said it would get better, the sadness would lessen over time. The children would have believed her, if she believed it herself.
“I can’t stay” said the girl
“But why? You have been happier these few days than you have been the last few years. You have seen wonders, met great friends, and had adventures like those from the greatest stories and beyond.”
“I know,” said the girl, her eyes full of tears. “I want to stay, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”
“I don’t understand” said her friend and guide on this journey.
“I have to go home.”
“Home? But you have said yourself that it is full of sadness and pain, loneliness, hard work, and sleepless nights. Never fitting in, never knowing what to say. No close friends, your father gone, your mother a silent shadow of her once sunny self. Your brothers angry and confused. You have wished so many times that you could be someplace else, someone else. I heard you, and I came. “
“Yes, thank you. I am more grateful than I can express. This world has been a dream to me, the sweetest most beautiful dream. I love you. I love all of this. But I can’t stay.”
“Why, Anna, why?” Her guide’s big blue eyes also wet with tears looking at her, pleading.
“I can’t let mother lose someone else she loves.”
