We’ve had some marvelous visits with our girl over the past 2 weeks.  All of a sudden, looks matter and she is making a real effort to be well groomed.  We get cross-eyed and dizzy headed by the perfume she’s taking to soaking in, but even that is part of the joy of this moment.  Earlier this week, she informed me that she now has 2 boyfriends–Jason and Daniel.  She met both of them at summer camp and she’s shown me the sweetest, tenderest love notes a girl could ask to receive–both of them look like they were written by a first-grader to judge from the penmanship and grammar, but they have all the awkward magic of a teenager putting words to paper.

After teasing Maria a bit about having not one but two boyfriends, I asked her how you get that many.  “Mami, you have to smell clean and look pretty.”

During those years when I was so twisted and torn about the whole thing of love and crushes and boyfriends and discovery, I didn’t know.  You have to smell clean and look pretty.  That simple.  That sweet.   Redemption takes many forms…