Friday, January 12, 2007

Her friend Martin

In the school yard, waiting for her teacher...

"My friend Martin's birthday is on Monday." Lauren announced.

I puzzled this for a moment. There isn't a Martin in her class. "Martin who?"

"Martin Luther King." she replied.

"Oh yes, his birthday is Monday." I said.

"Do you think I will get to have some of his birthday cake?"

"Well," I said. "Honey, Martin Luther King is dead."

"He is?"

"Yep. Since before I was born."

"Really?! How did he die?"

I paused a moment, trying to think of a good answer. Finally I said, "He was assassinated."

"Oh. Ok." she said. "Do you think he's buried underground?"

"Uh. I don't know, honey. Probably."

With this, she ran up to a boy in her class. "Hey, Miles? Do you know that Martin Luther King is dead?! He was assassinated and is probably buried underground!" she announced.

"Oh." said Miles. "That's cool, I guess."

5 comments:

Mimi Lenox said...

Too cute!

The Plaid Sheep said...

In fact, he is in a crypt in Atlanta. A memorial park was built around it.

Anonymous said...

I'm speechless; but loving it...

Lady Epiphany said...

@Delphi: thank you. I told her, and now, she would like to go to Atlanta to see it.

LMP said...

The city of Atlanta (with big thanks to Sistah Mayor Shirley Franklin) has just acquired his papers as well. There's a display of them at the Atlanta History Center that opened on his birthday. So come on down!