I grew up knowing I was different. and I hated it. I was born with a misshapen lip, crooked (弯曲的) nose and lopsided teeth. I couldn't even blow up a balloon without holding my nose, and when I bent to drink from a fountain, the water spilled out of my nose. When schoolmates asked, "What happened to your lip?" I'd tell them that I'd fallen as a baby and cut it on a piece of glass. It seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. By the age of seven I had been convinced that no one outside my own family could ever love me. Or even like me.
And then I entered second grade, and Mrs. Leonard's class. I never knew what her first name was — just Mrs. Leonard. She was round and pretty and fragrant, with chubby arms and shining brown hair and warm, dark eyes that smiled even on the rare occasions when her mouth didn't. Everyone adored her. But no one came to love her more than I did. And for a special reason.
The time came for the annual "hearing tests" given at our school. I was barely able to hear anything out of one ear, and was not about to show yet another problem that would single me out as different. So I cheated. Each child would go to the door of the classroom, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and the teacher would whisper something from her desk, which the child would repeat. Then the same thing was done for the other ear.
I had discovered that nobody checked to see how tightly the untested ear was being covered, so I merely pretended to block mine. As usual, I was last. I turned my bad ear to her, blocking the other solidly with my finger, then gently backed my finger out enough to be able to hear. I waited, and then came the words that God had surely put into her mouth, seven words that changed my life forever.
Mrs. Leonard, the pretty, fragrant teacher I adored, said softly, "I wish you were my little girl."
