Almost Tears

Last semester, a student in Madi's class quoted verses from Macbeth sending the kids into hysterics and sparking Madi's interest. Over the last couple months she's asked about Shakespeare, and I've relayed the stories with as much enthusiasm as I could conjure. We watched clips from the modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (I just love the first-sight scene through the fish tank). We even started dropping Shakespeare quotes in our conversations, with sly, knowing smiles.

Then one afternoon I found Madi pouring over my huge Shakespeare anthology. It covered her entire lap- the book is easily as large and as heavy as an unabridged Oxford English dictionary. But it wasn't the physical weight that stumped her, it was the language. Try as hard as she could, the words, foreign in pattern and imagery, were just out of her reach.

So when I happened upon this book while perusing amazon.com for Christmas presents, I immediately clicked "Add to Shopping Cart." It is a retelling of twelve Shakespeare plays, in story-form, and the author has tried to maintain as much of the Shakespeare "feel" as possible. It arrived a few days later. I flipped through it, quite satisfied. Wrapped it. And left it amongst the presents under the Christmas tree. Almost forgotten.

On Christmas morning, Madi opened the book without any fanfare. She had already opened her "big" presents, and the book was almost an afterthought. But when she removed the wrapping and saw what it was, everything stopped. She gasped. She gaped. She stared. And in an unexpected swell of emotion, she looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears.

Now, none of those tears actually materialized. They never touched her cheeks. We shared a hurried hug and later, after all the gifts were opened, we found a quiet spot and turned to chapter one of Hamlet. We read outloud together until the ghost of Hamlet's father appeared.

Almost-tears over Shakespeare?
Is this indeed my daughter?
How could I be so lucky?