Like a Virgin

I was eight years old when I learned about the "birds and bees."

It was a sunny afternoon, I had just dropped my backpack down at the front door and went straight to the kitchen for a snack. My mom was in there getting some stuff ready for dinner, I could hear my little sister in the back room playing with her dolls.

"Mom, what's a 'virgin'?"

She looked up from the stove at me with wide-eyes and then slowly narrowed them, spatula in the air. Her shoulders slumped and she said, "Give me just a minute here and we'll talk about that. Where did you hear that word?"

"I was at Bible Class today and they kept talking about 'The Virgin Mary'. Why did they call her a 'virgin'? ... Oh and I heard it on a T.V. show the other day too, but that time they were talking about a guy at their school."

She quietly finished making dinner, set it to the side to stay warm and told me to come sit on the couch in the living room. She brought a pencil and a pad of paper with her. Man, she meant business. This was not going to be any explanation.

Curiously I looked at her as I sat down, feeling a bit apprehensive at her seriousness.

A few diagrams later she had thoroughly explained the female reproductive system, the male reproductive system and how they delicately worked together to make a baby. Following that was a stern lecture about how this process was meant by God to be an act between a husband and wife that loved each other.

And then she began to cry.

Tell an eight-year-old little girl that a penis goes in a vagina to make a baby and THEN start crying... and you have pretty much engraved the moment into her mind forever. And possibly scared the living day lights out of her.

The reason for the tears was soon explained. My mother put her hand on my shoulder as tears streamed down her face and said that sometimes people who weren't married fell in love and made babies. That it was NEVER a mistake, it just wasn't the way God intended it and made it much harder for everyone involved.

A light bulb began to go off in my head. I realized that most kids probably don't remember their parent's wedding day like I did. I remember it because I was 3 years old on that day. And the man I now called "Daddy" didn't actually meet me until I was old enough to know I was the only kid in nursery school that didn't have a daddy.
I looked at my mom and I started to cry too. "Who is my daddy?"

She hugged me and told me that someday when I was old enough to know, she would tell me more, and if I wanted to meet him, that she would be okay with it. For now, my Daddy was the man that came to every school program, that took us to the zoo, and who was the only person I wanted when I fell off my bike and skinned my knee. She said that making a baby didn't make you a daddy... loving a child like they were your own did.

Finally I sighed and wiped my tears, looked back down at the drawing my mother had made me. An hour or so had passed since I had gotten home from school. From the drawings I looked back at my mothers face, eyes rimmed red with tears, but with a soft smile on her face.

"But, I still don't know what 'virgin' means."

At that, my mother started laughing and so did I.