"The Pencil"

Pencils are known as writing implements. You can write, draw, and trace with a pencil. Nobody could ever consider it as a weapon. My daughter, Lily, was three years old and in her day care when I got the call that would completely change my life. My husband had been dead long before Lily’s birth and had left me to care for her on my own.

That day I had had breakfast, dropped Lily off to her day care, and went to work at around nine in the morning. I was at work when I got a call from the day care manager at around noon. She said to come as quickly as possible because something had happened to my daughter.

I thought over all the possibilities of what might have happened. I thought of her having a tantrum, screaming, and calling for me. How very wrong I was. I saw an ambulance outside the small day care center and that is when I began to worry. I ran to Lily’s classroom to see what had happened.

There were paramedics everywhere and I pushed through them to get to my daughter. She was so pale and there was something sticking out of her chest that made me cry out. I knew then that she was dead. One of the day care teachers came to me and explained what happened. I didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t hear or see anything except my daughter lying there motionless and so very pale. After a couple of days I heard the story again.

They said that one minute Lily was drawing and then the next minute there was a young boy chasing after her. She still had the pencil in her hand when she was running. She tripped and the pencil had somehow gone through her chest and straight to her heart. Now when I think about it, it had looked like someone had thought of her as a vampire and had put a wooden stake through her heart.

I still have the same pencil that had pierced my daughter’s heart. I saved it to remind myself to never underestimate the power of small things and what they can do to you. I had only ever heard one other case like my daughter’s. A small boy was running around with a pencil when he tripped, and the pencil went straight through his calf. I will never forget that something so small can cause so much pain.