I met Isabella Mary Monahan on August the third of 2000. I never imagined the impact that she would have on my life. There are days when I ache inside just to hear her voice and her words of wisdom. Yet, there are many days her exuberant energy exhausts me. Isabella is beautiful and brilliant; funny thing, though, she thinks I am too. Being of a slight, wispy build, she moves like a butterfly with legs. Every step she takes in life is a flutter of dance steps; I’ve never seen her just walk. Eyes that are brilliant pools of blue reflect her spicy personality. Her delicate pearl white Irish skin glows like an angel’s. Her hair is like pure spun silk, and her sweet face is sprinkled with freckles that she hates.
One of the first things that I noticed about her is her ability to capture the attention of everyone in the room. Isabella always makes sure that she makes eye contact with all the people around her, unless she’s performing on stage. On stage she glows the brightest of all and seems to excel beyond her abilities. When given the opportunity she will make it a point to speak to every person in the room and find out something about each of them, even if there are 300 people in the room. In a crowded restaurant she will seek out a person who might not have noticed her, and she will make a point to speak a “hello,” or give a slight nod of acknowledgement when they look her way.
Until I met her, I considered myself to be a shy person, someone that you might find hiding under a stage but never on one. It’s impossible to remain in a cocoon when holding hands with a butterfly. I had given up my dream of writing and in fact I had stopped writing all together. Isabella never said to me, “Pick up your pen and move it across the paper!” It is the way in which she lives and talks and dances that makes me want to live and write and maybe even take a dance step; in private of course, behind closed doors. Isabella helped me find my lost imagination and together we sewed it back on. How do you say thank you to someone for giving you that kind of a gift?
I remember growing up and daydreaming about being a wife and a mother. I never daydreamed about being a grandmother. A grandmother was someone who was old, shriveled up, and terribly boring. Isabella certainly straightened me out on those wrong pieces of information. She taught me that a grandmother is a person that knows all the answers to every question ever asked. And I have discovered, there are a lot of questions asked. A grandmother listens, laughs and plays pretend. A grandma shows her granddaughter pictures of mother and father attending the Royal Ball, also known as the prom, when they were young, before the granddaughter was “invented.”
One day, when I showed her a map of the United States, she asked, “But Grandma, where is heaven?” My reply was, “What, uh … heaven?” She flipped the map over and said, “Oh look! Here it is! It’s on the other side.” In her infinite wisdom I knew she was right. On August the third of 2000 a little girl came into my sleepy life. She woke me up and taught my heart to dance and her name is Isabella Mary Monahan.


MaryAnn Kohenskey lives in Maryland Heights, MO. She is a member of Saturday Writers and of a weekly critique group in Maryland Heights.


Copyright © 2006. Do not reproduce without permission.

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