My Girl Shirley

T T T

My Girl Shirley

By: RevJames

When Shirley Temple Black passed away in February 2014, it was

as though it was for the second time in my life; and for a few

days afterward, just as after the first time, I was quiet and

mopey . . . childishly mopey. I wouldn't eat my peas.

    The earlier memory is far too ancient, I admit, to tickle

any true sadness from me now. But in the late nineteen

sixties, you see, when I was just five-years-old, Shirley

Temple was my girlfriend. Or so my mother had me believe.

Every Saturday morning as Shirley sang and danced on our

small black and white TV my mother would insist, "You're

blushing, Donny! Isn't that your girlfriend?" Or even

as I was out conquering bug colonies in the backyard, my

mother would call from the kitchen window, "Donny, come

inside! Your girlfriend is on!" And I'd actually rush

into the house to feel the bashfulness of my own love for

Shirley, and to feel the pride over my mother's

recognition that the sparkling curly-headed Shirley was mine.

Poor little boy was I, however, for meanwhile I'd

been oblivious to the reality that the cute little girl on TV

who famously bounced her way into everyone's hearts week

after week, had actually done so decades earlier, to say, I

was seeing only sounds and images of movies that were created

long before I was even born. Shirley, in my own real world,

was but a shadow.

    I was six before I found out. One morning my mother came

into the kitchen with a sheepish grin and a newspaper in her

hand, "Your girlfriend is on the front page," she teased.

This was in 1969 when Shirley Temple, now in her forties and

with the added "Black" to her name, had been appointed as a

representative at the United Nations General Assembly.

    "That's not her," I said, eating my Cheerios. I was

confused. The picture was of a dark-haired woman, hansom, but

who was much older than my own mother. Also, I didn't

understand why my mother, reading the article out loud to me,

kept saying "black" when everyone knew that Shirley Temple was

white. "Stop tryin' a be stupid," I told my mother.

Finally she stopped reading (I didn't understand the

article anyway) and explained to me, "Shirley Temple is all

grown up, sweetheart. She's a grown woman, with a husband

and children of her own."

    I was crushed.

    My lip trembled and I cried: little Shirley was not my

little Shirley. She had moved on, into the great oblivion of

important places known only to adults, into some great beyond

without me, into her own life, gone, gone. Time had stolen

her from me. And suddenly I felt myself cowering from the

idea of my own growing up; I didn't want to.

I looked up and saw regret on my mother's face. I

think at some point she'd come to realize the seriousness

of her imaginative little boy's perception and used the

newspaper as an opportunity to promote me emotionally.

Although, what she probably failed to realize was the more

painful loss. The longtime play between her and me, this bit

about my having a girlfriend on TV -- and about which I

believed I'd been making my mother jealous -- was over.

She hugged me, in fact several times that day.

mom

Awwwe. This is cute.

Will

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