A GIRL NAMED FRED<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
J. Michael Sharman
 
Once upon a time a five pound six ounce baby girl was born. Her name was Fred. While she was still in her momma's womb, God gave her a very cheerful attitude. Each time she grew a new part, such as a finger or a toe, she thought, "Oh, goody, something new to play with!" And as she waved around her new finger or toe, her momma would feel the movement inside, and know there was life growing in her.
 Fred's momma was not pleased that she was growing a baby. She was not yet married and sometimes she ate some things, like drugs, and drank some things, like alcohol, that made Fred feel very sick. Those things also caused trouble with Fred growing new parts. She never did completely grow a full thumb on her right hand. (When Fred got to second grade she would say to new people she met, "Hi, I'm Fred and I don't have a thumb, I have a thu, because the umb never showed up.")
During the fourth and fifth month that Fred was growing in her momma, they had to go to jail for something momma had done wrong the year before. Fred liked the time in jail because her momma ate real food and slept a lot and did not take any of the stuff that made Fred sick.
Fred was able to grow so much that by the time they got out of jail, she had made her momma so fat that even a not very bright man could tell Fred's momma was pregnant (and it seemed like the men Fred's momma knew were not very bright).
For the next few months, Fred didn't grow too well. Her momma again ate and drank the things that made Fred sick. At first, she kept waving and kicking at her mom, saying, "Hey, cut it out, I'm trying to grow in here!"
After awhile, though, Fred got sick when Momma didn't eat or drink those things. Fred wasn't even yet an infant, much less an adult, but even she knew this was not good. So, about a month before she was really finished, she decided she was going to make a break for it and be born.
Being born wasn't such an easy thing to do, and after it was over, Fred was having a hard time seeing the good side to it. It was cold outside of Momma; cold and glaringly bright.
Being fed was more of a problem, too. Inside Momma, she had been fed directly with no waiting and no needing to ask for it. Now she only got fed at certain times of the day or if she got really, really mad and screamed a lot about it. At first she didn't like to scream, but then she practiced and got good at it, and it became almost fun.
She certainly got a lot of crying practice, mainly because she wasn't hooked up to her mother anymore and was not getting the stuff her mother ate and drank. Not having it made her muscles hurt, and made her sick and sweaty sometimes or cold and clammy othertimes. It was crummy.
She was very glad that the worst of the sickness was over after she'd been apart from her mom for several days. Then she was able to enjoy all the new shapes, sounds and colors that surrounded her in the Children's Intensive Care Unit.
There were so many new friends to make, too. Just a few days earlier, the only person Fred had ever known in the whole world was Momma. Now Momma was nowhere to be found and there were so many others: the doctors, nurses, technicians, volunteers and all the other babies in the Children's Intensive Care Unit.
The last time Fred or anyone had seen Momma was when one of the nurses had brought Momma from Maternity to see her in the Intensive Care Unit.
"What name do you want to put on her birth certificate?" the nurse asked.
"I can call her anything I want, right?" said Momma.
"You sure can," answered the nurse.
"Then call her Fred," Momma told her.
"But that's a boy's name and this is a very petite little girl", argued the nurse.
"Her name is Fred," stated Momma, "People will notice her more that way." And with that she went back to her room, changed from her hospital gown into the clothes she had brought to the hospital, and left.
Fred had lots of time to get to know her new friends at the hospital. Her favorite friend was her two o'clock hugger. Since she and many of the other babies didn't have a Momma to hug them, some nice people had volunteered to come in for one hour a day and hug the babies. Fred had four different huggers and she liked them all, but she liked Two O'clock best.
Two O'clock was a small woman, soft and quiet. She smelled fresh and clean, without the perfume that some of the other buggers wore which hurt Fred's nose. She hugged Fred just the way Fred liked to be hugged, rather than hugging her the way she thought Fred should be hugged. Fred imagined that Momma would have hugged her just the way Two O'clock did. The little hymns that Two O'clock hummed were guaranteed sleep-makers.
Two O'clock, whom everyone else called Gramma Kitty, was often asked about her volunteer work, Whenever someone did ask, Gramma Kitty would always tell them about the little girl named Fred.
One Sunday, about three months after Fred was born, a couple came up to Gramma Kitty after church. Their names were Bill and Alice. They had heard about Fred.
"We haven't been able to forget that story about the girl named Fred. Do you think it would be possible for us to be foster parents for her?" they asked.
After a while, with Gramma Kitty's help they were able to take Fred home. Fred liked living at their house and being hugged all the time, instead of just four times a day. Gramma Kitty came by often to help the Bill and Alice learn how to take care of a baby.
Fred thought it was really funny one time when Bill told some visiting friends that Fred was "a real doll, even though she is a slow learner." Fred knew how the nurses had taken care of her, and how Gramma Kitty had cared for her, and compared to them, boy, Bill and Alice were the ones who were really slow learners.
 But they were so nice that Fred didn't mind the mistakes they occasionally made, like giving her a spoonful of their favorite chili or sometimes forgetting to change her diapers when they gave Fred her midnight bottle. A few years after Fred had been with Bill and Alice, they decided they were ready to try and adopt her.
"Would you like to stay with us and always be our little girl?" they asked Fred.
"No, uh uh," said Fred.
"Why not?" they asked with hurt expressions.
"Cuz I don't wanna be a little girl always," she said. " I wanna be a grownup someday so I can have a house to bring home babies who don't have real mommas."
Bill and Alice found out there were many problems with trying to adopt Fred. Fred's momma was now in prison in a different state and Bill and Alice had to go to this agency and that agency, this lawyer and that lawyer, this court and that court. Finally, when Fred was just about to enter third grade, the adoption became final and Bill and Alice became her Daddy and Mommy.
After the adoption was final, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Alice spoke with Fred. "Honey, you know that the adoption changed your last name to be the same as our last name, right?"
"Right, right," chirped Fred.
"Well, honey, we also asked the judge to change your first name, too."
"You did?' said Fred, surprised. "Who am I now?"
"We gave you the name of a woman in the Bible who was beautiful in both how she looked and in what she did. The meaning of her name is 'a star,' and one of the Books of the Old Testament is named after her because of the lessons other women can learn from her in beauty, tact, heroism, self-denial, courage, patriotism and a love for the Lord."
"Wow," said Fred. "And me and a Book of the Old Testament will be named after her?"
"Yes, Honey, you will," said Alice. "What do you think of that?"
"Wow," said Fred.
On her first day of third grade, her new teacher asked each child to stand and tell the class their name and something about themselves. She thought and thought about what to say and when her turn came she practically pounced out of her chair and said;
"Hi. My name used to be Fred,
but now it's Esther.
Being Fred was better than being dead,
but believe me, being Esther is best-er.'
THE END