Yellow

In my college theatre classes, we used to play a metaphor game called "Essence." In that game, designed to encourage us to extract the "essence" of character, the person whose turn it was would choose a well known real-life person--perhaps a celebrity--and the rest of us would ask questions in an attempt to guess the identity of that person.

The questions asked had to be designed in the following format:

• If this person were a car, what would he/she be?
• If this person were a dance, what would he/she be?
• If this person were one of the crayons in a Crayola 8-pack, what would he/she be? 

And so on. If the answers to these questions were Corvette, rock and roll, and black, those doing the guessing might gradually narrow their thoughts toward Elvis Presley. If the initial guesses were incorrect, then more questions would be asked until the "essence" of the person in question was finally made clear by the metaphors. 

If it were my turn to answer these same questions about my granddaughter Bootsie, I would say Volkswagen Beetle, ballet, and yellow. With those clues, you would be well on the way to extracting the "essence" of this beautiful little girl whose eighth birthday we celebrated three days ago.

Of the metaphors above, the one that best describes Bootsie is yellow. From her buttery yellow braid to the delicious three-layer lemon cake her mama baked for her birthday, Bootsie exudes yellow. In our lives she is like a bright ray of sunshine that bounces around a room and warms us all.

Pa-pa and I were glad to get to spend the night at Bootsie's house this year on Oct. 3 just like we did on that same date in 2010. It was in the wee hours of the morning of Oct. 4 that year that Bootsie's mama rapped on the guest bedroom door with the words, "Mom, we're going now." And just a few hours later, that little trip to the hospital made our world the cheerful yellow place it has been ever since.

Happy birthday to you, Bootsie. You are butter and sunshine and lemon cake--and sometimes a little bit bananas . . . .

But we love you that way and never want you to change. We love the special shade of yellow that is the essence of you. Pa-pa and I are sure you will brighten your second-grade classroom all year long and leave a trail of shiny sunbeams wherever you go.