History has been pinked

Photo by Bill Ault
picturesfromthewoods.blogspot.com

Recently, my 2nd grade daughter was assigned a research project on a famous American.  Each student was to choose a historic figure, research his/her life, and then give a speech from the famous person's point of view.

A list was sent home with famous men and women across the United States's history.  Needless to say, the men were quickly eliminated because, as my daughter told me with a roll of her eyes, "There is NO WAY I'm going to wear a beard!"  I was slightly affronted because I've been known to sport a mustache for certain occasions and had no idea this was so highly frowned upon by the rest of the girlie world.

We dutifully went through the list of women, googling each of them to find pictures and quick facts in the hopes of piquing my daughter's interest.  No good.  We went through the whole list and she wasn't really excited about any of them.  She looked at me with those steely blue eyes and wondered why all the famous Americans were dead.  Wasn't there anyone worth learning about who was still alive?

Hmm.

I reassured her that there were women today making great changes in the world and gave her a quick list of possibilities.  When I mentioned Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, her eyes lit up.

We did the research and my little girl wrote a beautiful speech and practiced it until she could just about say it without peeking at her pink notecard.  Victory!

Not quite.  Besides giving the speech, each student needed a visual element for her presentation.  According to my daughter, dressing as your famous American, did not count.  Ugh.  The dreaded poster.

I'm not one for posters.  Mostly because I have to go out and buy the poster board, and I'm just too lazy.  But if asked, I say something along the lines of, A poster does no justice to the creative soul of my child! I'm sure to say it all snotty and holier-than-thou-ish so that no one argues with me.  That way I don't run the risk of ratting myself out by admitting that I really just do not want to go to Wal-Mart for poster board. 

We brainstormed and decided on making pink ribbons for everyone in her class.  My daughter assured me, "Ambassador Brinker would LOVE that idea!"

I went to class the morning of the presentation full of nerves.  My daughter had worked so hard and was very nervous herself.  At the end of her speech, she declared she'd be handing out pink ribbons to everyone to help remind them that, "Everyone deserves a lifetime."  This is a theme for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.

Classmates in their own famous American costumes were clamoring for the ribbons.  I stood back and watched with amusement that grew into utter delight as great leaders like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, great inventors like Benjamin Banneker and Benjamin Franklin, and great women all donned pink ribbons.

Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Chanel, and Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, helped each other clasp their pink ribbon pins on their shirt collars.  There were two Rosa Parks, one dark skinned and one light skinned, who sat with Helen Keller and admired each other's pink ribbons.  Clara Barton, Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts), Alexander Hamilton, Paul Revere, even Colin Powell all smiled back at me with matching pink ribbons.

It was quite a sight.  I couldn't help but think that my daughter had been very right about this one.  Ambassador Brinker would have loved to have seen this sight.  Pink ribbons on great figures in our past and the possible great figures of our future all at the same time.  I couldn't have been prouder of my daughter, of her bright and caring classmates, of the teachers that push them to excel, or of the cancer-free future that I could see dawning in their faces.