Tell Me Again, Mama

“Tell me again, Mama.” she said snuggling down into the old quilts her great grandma had made so many years ago. “What it was like when you were a little girl? I want to hear it again” she pleaded.

“I only remember a little bit of it, darling, I was a little girl just like you when everything changed but I recall it being wonderful, at least for awhile. We lived in a little apartment, barely big enough for two small bedrooms and a place for the sofa but it was ours and we loved it. I had my own room where I kept books, toys and all the dolls that I would dress in pretty clothes. We were never cold. It had a heater that we could set to whatever temperature we wanted, as hot as we could stand, all without having to put wood in the fireplace. And lights, we had them too, all the time- even after the sun went down. All we had to do was flip a switch on the wall and it was just like daylight. Sometimes we kept them on all night long and they never ran out.” she explained.

"We would go to the park and play on the slides that curled round and round before sending you off the end as fast as you can imagine where you might slide into the gravel and get covered in dust. We would laugh, brush ourselves off and then do it all over again."

"I also remember that there were places called Malls. Everyone had a car and we could drive far away without worrying if there was enough gas. It was so big it must have held hundreds of stores. They were like indoor towns where it never rained, the air was always cool and music played the whole time. It was stuffed with all sorts of shops that were filled with the most lovely outfits, probably a thousand shoes and shops with candles in every shape and color. In the middle there was a place where people cooked and sold food in little booths. There would be pizza, hamburgers and chicken. You could buy cookies and ice cream or coffee that was mixed up with all sorts of sugars and topped with fluffy whipped cream. You paid for it by putting a card into a little machine. Everything was pretty and nice,” she recollected.

“But what happened, Mama?”

“Now, we have talked about this, remember? About the people who wanted too much, much more than anyone needed? They would do anything to get more and more so they took it from other people and called it fair. Nobody wanted to give anything up to fix it so it got worse. They forgot about God. They did lots of things they were not supposed to”

“Pretty soon things were so expensive that you didn’t have enough money to buy anything. When the big companies couldn’t sell what they made, more people lost their jobs. Finally, it got so bad that everything just stopped. Just like that. There are no more malls; they are just old buildings that are falling apart. I think birds live in them now. No more air-conditioning or heat or driving in cars. No internet or listening to music on IPods” she explained.

We’ll be ok though, don’t worry,” her mom reminded her. “We have our little garden, we know how to save our food for the winter, how to spin thread and weave it into fabric so I can sew your pretty little dresses.”

“But Mama, can’t we make it all over again, just like it used to be?” she questioned.

“I hope not sweetie. I hope we get it right this time.”