Girlfriends

Picking up my girls from school is always an adventure.  Maya insists on being carried (and her mama is all too willing to hold her after a long day of being separated).  Eva comes out of the door on the opposite side of the building, so we trudge through the sea of kids to meet her smiling face when she races for a hug.  Then, we weave through hundreds of little people who have no concept of walking at normal kid pace... and adults with no concept of traffic flow.

As we go, we get little snippets of conversations that can at best be described as straddling the line between inane and ridiculous.  Until today.

Today, I came across a small group of 1st graders.  Two boys and two girls.  I don't know how long they'd been there or how it started but here is what I heard:

Girl #1 to Boy #1 :  "How could you say she's ugly?  She's beautiful!"
Boy #1 shrugs and looks away from Girl #2.
Girl #1  gently places her hand on Girl #2s shoulder and smiles.
Girl #1 pops Boy #1 on the back of the head.
Boys walk away.

I stopped what I was doing and watched them.  I stood and watched as that little girl straightened her back and took her friend's confidence onto her shoulders.  I wanted to go to those girls and squeeze them.  I wanted to tell Girl #2, "Hold on to this friend with both hands.  Keep her by your side and always know that she is golden."  I wanted to take Girl #1 by the shoulders and make her look me in the eye while I told her, "You are a good one, little lady.  You are the kind of friend that people like me search a lifetime for."  And, I wanted to pop both boys in the back of the head.

See, Girl #2 was beautiful.  But, that is irrelevant.  Even if she had been hideous in form and character, her friend would've knocked that boy down anyway.  And, I don't know a single girl who doesn't need a person like that on their side. 

Those little girls are going to be preteens one day, and they'll need each other even more.  They'll lean on each other in the halls of the middle school where bullies lie in wait.  Then, they'll be twenty-somethings, and they'll look to each other to navigate the long roads of guys who will say anything to beat them down and girls who will sit and wait in the hope that those same guys will choose them next.  And, eventually, those two little girls will be grown women.  Women who will be surprised that the mean boys grow into meaner men and the jealous girls grow into vindictive women.

Girl #2 is always going to need Girl #1, but they don't know that yet.  All they learned today is that, whenever a boy needs to be smacked in the head, a real friend is already warming up her backhand.  And, at six years old, that packs quite a punch.