by Tamara Pettit
The Star
It was just a star. Not even a fancy star, but a rough five-point star drawn with a fountain pen. The fountain pen, an elegant reminder of another time when your signature was your bond and your word was all another person needed. But, it was the man who drew the stars who made all the difference. He brought life and meaning to those stars imbuing in them a life lesson for the seven grandchildren who would be the lucky recipient of the stars in their formative years.
It actually started with me. Until I was five we lived in the apartment above my Dad’s office in Upper Town. It was a Justice of the Peace, City Judge and County Coroner’s Office. It was an Insurance Agency. It was where he did the books for the Finance Company he held a piece of, and the garbage company his family didn’t know he owned, It was where everything happened and where a little girl fresh from her bath in her night gown would tip toe down at 7 p.m. every night……..to get her star. Very solemnly I would hold out my hand on the shelf that pulled out on his desk and he would take out his fountain pen and slowly draw a star on each of my hands. As he drew, he would explain I was his star and so very special. It never ceased to make me feel special and I did everything I could to keep if from coming off (my hand hygiene habits probably lacked in those days.). Didn’t matter. No-one knew the secret I shared with my Dad. I was a star.
And, when my sister had five children and I had two, the stars continued to work their magic. With the name “Popa” now bestowed upon him, their grandfather was determined his grandchildren would have high self esteem and good feelings about themselves.
It was different with Doug. He had a speech impediment that could have derailed his self-esteem and played havoc with his academic promise. At age five when he went to kindergarten, no-one could understand a word he said. For Doug, Dad would take off his socks and shoes and painstakingly draw a star on the insole of each foot. It wasn’t an easy task, for Doug was ticklish but Popa would persevere. He was determine for Doug to know he was special. Doug and Popa had a secret. Those kids on the playground couldn’t know what his socks and shoes covered: proof that Doug was special. (I should mention that Shannon too was the recipient of stars on her feet. She wasn’t ticklish,however, and held her foot very still while she got her cherished star.)
The star would be with Doug through many speech therapy sessions, and elementary, jr high and high school. He was a freshman at Bethany College when my Dad died. He wrote about his Popa’s funeral in a paper. He wrote about how it seemed the whole town came to pay their respects and the many stories he heard about him. He wrote about walking out into the sunlight to go to the cemetery to find every police cruiser in the county lined up to escort Popa to his final resting place.
But then he wrote, “None of them knew the most special thing the man had ever done. He drew that star on my feet every day because he was determined to make me feel special. And, he did.”
However you define it; however you convey it; make sure a “star” accompanies your child to school. It can make all the difference.
