If only the little girl’s older sister had not died. If only her sister had been able to fulfill her promise of taking care of her, maybe then, life would have been easier. The little girl needed her sister’s companionship and the safety that love had provided. But it was not to be. As the little girl struggled through life, she found other ways to protect herself. Carefully constructed walls were erected around her heart, like a castle protecting its princess. The drawbridge was drawn and the deep dark moat helped to fortify the walls.
All of her life, the little girl existed in a place of her own, void of the closeness of those who surrounded her. The few times when she gained the courage to reach out beyond her self-imposed barriers, she was greeted with pain. In the end, she found it easier to remain behind the protective walls that surrounded her heart.
Those protective walls helped the little girl survive her lonely childhood. They protected her through lonely teenage years. The walls protected her through tumultuous adult trials. But just as the walls kept the pain at bay, they also kept those in her life at a distance. And even as she nurtured those dependent upon her, she lacked the nurturing that she herself desperately needed.
Then, one day when the little girl, now grown up, was at her lowest, a prince on a white horse road into her life. He arrived in the form of a police officer driving a white patrol car, just as the prince arrived for Vivian in a limo in the movie Pretty Woman. For the first time since the death of her sister, the little girl, now a woman, felt loved and cherished. The prince’s love enveloped and warmed her; and as he showered her with love and affection, the walls that had held her heart bound for most of her life, began to crumble. In the end, the little girl found what she had searched for her entire life. She found unconditional love and someone to take care of her, someone to nurture her.
January 13, 2009
