Reading between the lines

My kitchen remodel ,that I have been hiding in, forced me to clean my "catch all " shelf over my dryer. As I was taking everything down , I picked up these papers that were folded and lying in the very back corner of the shelf.





It was a story Rachel had written for her English class in 2005. I wasn't really sure what I was reading. It didn't look familiar. As I skimmed through the pages the first thing I read was " I realized I couldn't waste my time feeling sorry for myself when other people needed me".. wow..that was all I could read. I sat and just stared at it, trying to understand how I had not found it before. I had been up on that shelf many times...making corsages, getting tools..and there is sat. Here is the story ..

One Windswept Summer

In our life we will come across people who affect the entire way we look at ourselves and the world around us. Animals are the exception. They don't try to conform you to societies perspective; they accept you as you are with all your flaws and imperfections. This makes pets seem closer than any human friend because they listen, without interruption, and they can brighten even the darkest days by being there.It was the summer I went to stay at my Uncle Bruce's farm that I realized this;it was the summer that I found myself through Lamb-Chop.
I was 14 and like many teenagers, I was very introverted and spent most of my time lying in my room staring at the ceiling. My mom, tired of me feeling sorry for myself, decided to send me off to Uncle Bruces farm in hot sticky Louisiana. Let me tell you , I was not thrilled of spending two and half months with a man I only saw once a year at Christmas, but it was nonnegotiable. During the first few weeks on the farm, I stayed confined to my room, wishing my friends were there to feel sorry for me and comfort me. But then everything changed. I was lying in bed one night with the window open, trying to catch a breeze, when I heard a soft moaning coming from below my window. I leaped from the bed, convinced the old house was haunted, and ran to the window. When I looked down, I was surprised to see a tiny lamb lying in the rose bushes, thorns caught in its wool.I raced to the front door, across the wrap-around porch, and to the rose bush to free the tiny lamb.I slowly approached the bush so I wouldn't startle the tiny animal and make it become ever more entangled in the thorns. As quickly as I could without injuring the lamb, I pulled out the thorns, doing my best to make the lamb feel safe. After two minutes that felt like an eternity, the thorns released the lamb from its entrapment.Sitting there in the dark, we just stared at each other , until finally I said " you're free, Lamb-chop. Go back to your family". Lamb-chop sat there staring at me with her gorgeous brown eyes as though she were transfixed, captivated by my presence. I realized that she had no idea where to go and if I left her outside, a bobcat was sure to eat her for a midnight snack. Carefully wrapping the tiny lamb in my sweatshirt, I silently crept back up onto the front porch, through the front door and back into my room.
For the rest of the night, Lamb-chop slept at the foot of my bed, still wrapped in my sweatshirt.The next morning, my uncle, who wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of having a farm animal sleeping inside,still consented to let me tend to Lamb-chop for the rest of my stay. For the next month and a half, I had been transformed completely into an extroverted person who no longer laid around feeling sorry for myself but spent most of her time running around outside playing with Lamb-chop. I told that tiny animal my deepest secrets and things that I never dreamed I'd tell anyone. I realized that I couldn't wasted my time feeling sorry for myself when other people needed me. Also I realized I had no reason to feel sorry for myself in the first place.I never thought I would actually feel distraught when the summer was over because I never thought I would have the time of my life at a smelly Louisiana farm. Lamb-chop couldn't come back home with me and I cried the whole way home and the next day because over the month and a half that lamb had become my best friend, the one person who I could confide all the deepest desires of my heart and know she would not laugh at me.
The days that followed my return were hard and emotional but I soon realized that even though I lost Lamb-chop, I found myself and I knew the memory of Lamb-chop would not quickly fade. Last summer I went back to my uncle's farm and found that Lamb-chop had been sold to a farm in Kentucky.but instead of feeling remorse,I knew that Lamb-chop's purpose was going to be better served helping their teenage daughter find herself through the love and support she gives.