precious .

http://bricabeaucoup.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2qth3d

"I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates who were constantly teasing, made it clear to me how I must've looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and a hollow and somewhat garbled speech. When schoolmates asked, "What happened to your face?" I'd tell them I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow, it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. By the age of seven I was convinced that no one outside my own family could ever love me...or even like me. Then I entered the second grade. Mrs. Leonard was pretty and fragrant with warm dark eyes that smiled even when her mouth didn't. Everyone adored her, but no one came to love her more than I did, and for a special reason...It was time for our annual "hearing tests" given at school. I could barely hear out of one ear and was not about to reveal yet another problem that would single me out as different. And so I cheated. I had learned to watch other children and raised my hand when they did. The "whisper test" was different though. Each child would go to the classroom alone, close one ear with a finger, and the teacher would whisper something which the child would repeat. I merely pretended to block mine. As usual I was last, but all through testing, I wondered what she might say to me. I knew from previous years that she whispered things like "The sky is blue". Finally, my turn came up. I turned my bad ear, plugging up the other. I waited...words that God had surely put into her mouth, seven words that changed my life forever; Mrs. Leonard, the pretty teacher I adored, said softly, "I wish you were my little girl." ♥ "