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(Continued)
I figured the awards would
be a good place to start. The essay award was easy to track down.
I remembered the day she won it, because she must have shown it to
every student in my class. One phone call to the Scholastic
Achievement Society and I had the essay in my hands by the
weekend. But until last week I had never read what Denise had
written in tribute to her mother.
_
My Mother's Magic Bag
By Denise Duncan
When I was eight I got the
measles. "Mom!" I screamed. I've got these big, red,
ugly blotches all over my face! How can I let anyone see me like
this?" I really believed that I would have those ugly
blotches for the rest of my life, and I cried all day long.
That night my mother told me
about her magic bag. "Denise," she said with just the
trace of a smile. I had planned not to tell you my secret until
you were much older, but maybe it's time you knew about my magic
bag." Upon my bed she placed what appeared to be an ordinary
black pocketbook, just like the one she used to carry with her to
the grocery store before Dad bought her the shiny new one.
"Can you keep a secret?"
I assured her that I could.
"This bag once belonged
to a beautiful young princess, and it contains three wishes,”
she whispered. "I haven't used any of them yet, and I have to
be the one to make each wish... but I'm going to make that first
wish right now." My mother closed her eyes as tight as she
could. "Magic Bag! Magic Bag! Please make the skin of my
beautiful daughter as lovely as it once had been."
My mother opened her eyes
and told me to reach into the magic bag. I pulled out a slip of
pink paper, with a single sentence written upon it: "Your
daughter's skin will be as beautiful as ever in exactly one
week."
"Thank you! Oh, thank
you!" I cried as I threw my arms around my mother. And then,
wiping the tears from my face I added, "I promise I'll never
tell anyone, Mom. Not ever."
***
When I was twelve Tommy
Watson had asked me to the movies. I spent all Sunday morning
dressing up, and I waited in front of my house for over two hours.
But Tommy never showed, and when I called his house, his mother
told me that Tommy had gone to a baseball game with his friends. I
cried right through dinner. My mother leaned toward me.
"Let's get the magic
bag," she whispered.
Together in my room my
mother again spoke the words I remembered as a child. "Magic
Bag! Magic Bag! Will you grant my second wish to ease the pain of
my beautiful princess and give her the gift of love?"
Again she told me to reach
into the magic bag, and again I pulled out a pink sheet of paper
with a single sentence upon it: "Within the next week you
will forget Tommy Watson and be loved more than you have ever
thought possible. "
Although I truly wanted to
believe in the power of the magic bag, I couldn't see how it could
possibly grant me this wish. I forced a smile for my mother, and
she whispered into my ear, "Always remember... the magic bag
never lies."
The following Saturday
morning I was awakened by a dozen enthusiastic licks from a tiny
warm tongue. I opened my eyes and found myself in bed with the
most furry, blackest cocker spaniel puppy I had ever seen. Her
wagging tail and countless licks across my face showed that she
could not love me enough. As I held my new friend close to me, my
mother stepped into my room. She stood by my bed smiling.
"Oh Mom, you were
right!" I cried. "The magic bag never lies!"
***
It rained heavily on my
seventeenth birthday, and the sky remained a muddy brown all day.
I sat alongside my mother's bed in the hospital and waited for her
to awaken. Months of chemotherapy had turned what remained of her
hair to wispy straw. After several hours she finally awakened.
"Denise? How long have
you been here?" She asked in a voice I might not have
recognized had it not come from her lips. "I didn't want you
to see me like this on your birthday. I must look like..."
"You look beautiful,
Mom, just like the mother of a princess,” I assured her. "I
came because I wanted to ask you to do something for me." I
reached under the chair and placed the old, beat-up pocketbook
into her hands. "It's the magic bag, Mom... and I want to ask
you to make that third wish now."
My mother looked down at the
bag without saying anything for several minutes. The words seemed
caught in her throat. I took her hand, and holding it tight I
leaned forward.
"I want you to ask the
magic bag... I want you to ask it to make you better, okay? Will
you ask it to do that for me, Mom? Will you ask the magic bag to
do that?"
She seemed to struggle to
find the right words. "Denise, you know I can't... that the
bag isn't really...” But her words trailed off. I squeezed her
hand and smiled. She smiled back, and looked down at the bag. She
began to recite the familiar words, and my lips silently formed
the same words as she spoke.
"Magic Bag... Magic
Bag...” she began, again struggling with the words. "Will
you grant this third wish for my daughter? Will you make me...?
Can you make me...?" She closed her eyes and held my hand
firmly. "Will you make me well... for my daughter?"
I whispered close to her
ear, "Look in the bag, Mom."
Hesitantly, she reached
inside and pulled out a slip of pink paper. Upon it was a single
sentence written in the scrawled handwriting of a seventeen year
old girl who desperately wanted to believe in the power of all the
magic bags that had ever existed: "Within
one week you will find more peace and love than the world has ever
known."
I held my mother in my arms
and whispered to her, "Remember, Mom... The Magic Bag never
lies."
I remembered those words
with a smile when, exactly one week later, I watched as my
mother's casket was lowered into her grave.
_
Denise's essay told me much
about the person I'd thought I'd remembered but little about what
I'd wanted to know. Clearly she had wanted to believe in the magic
of her mother's magic bag. What had happened to its magic? Her
essay was only one piece to the puzzle of Denise Duncan, so I
returned to the folder I had photocopied.
(Turn
the page)
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