Stone Carvings of Childhood Era

Tonight he is the star on the stage. He is singing and dancing. All the girls reach for his hand. They take his picture, and shout his name to draw his attention. In the audience, he has an old friend. A friend from his childhood. She came just to support him on his big night and to catch up with him.

They meet after the concert. He does not talk about his successful career much. Instead, he says how as a kid he enjoyed going to his friend's house. How he liked its yard with an always empty pool. How he liked playing with her American games. But above all, he remembers how she was studios and he was not. How his mother wished he was more like her. He remembers when his parents built their house, they had the opportunity to pick a name for their alley. They did not name it after their son. No, they named it after her, a girl of a distant relative! It might have to do with the fact that all other close-by streets were named after flowers and her name was also a flower's name. Having his name for their street would have broken the pattern in that neighborhood: this reasoning could not heal his hurt feelings.

The old friend, a grown woman now, listens to him. She feels the heavy weight of all the sadness he has been carrying since his childhood. She had no idea all these years that is how she is remembered on the other side of the world, in southern hemisphere, by an old friend. She had stolen part of his mother's love and attention he needed so badly without even knowing it, or worse, without even trying.

She is so glad they had this conversation. She thinks: "Good that I came to see him. Good that I acknowledged he is the star, and I am an old fan." That night, she made a promise to herself: if she ever had a kid, she would constantly reassure her/him that s/he is loved regardless of his/her successes and shortcomings. She would never ever compare her child with another.