Grace

media type="custom" key="7582147" Grace November 17, 2010 309 Seedfolks Final RAFT

Juliet
I sat at my desk and looked around at my bedroom. It was hot pink and there were fluffy pillows covering the bed. Although I knew it was the same furniture from my bedroom in France, it didn't feel the same. I looked back down at my letter. All it said was, "Dear Christine". Christine had been my best friend in France, until we moved to America. She and I had taken many trips to the little cafe on the corner in our town, and to the boutique where we bought all of our expensive clothes. I miss Christine more than anything. Now in America, I have no friends, and there are no cafes or boutiques where I live. I don't even have a father. He died when I was only one. I have no memory of him. Sometimes at night, when I am alone in my bed, I will cry. I cry because I am lonely and I miss my father and my friends. I didn't know that it was possible to miss someone you didn't even know. Everyday I look longingly out my big bedroom window, and wish to be back in France. My mom and I moved from France last year when I was eight. We lived in a big house. It had a beautiful courtyard with the most amazing clay water fountain right in the middle. We had many servants and a dining hall with sparkling silverware. My bedroom window overlooked our huge grape plantation. I had thought it was the best place in the whole world. Now we live in an apartment. It is the biggest apartment on our street, but it is not half as pretty as my house in France. When we first moved here I wouldn't even talk to anyone, I was so mad. I never wanted to move to America. I hated almost everything about America. At least that is what I would've said before the summer I made my first friend in America. I was sitting at the dinner table with my mother. We were eating my favorite french cheese on crunchy baguettes. It was a very fancy and expensive cheese, that we had bought from a french man down the street. I looked out the window at the Gibb Street Garden. I had never put much thought to it, although I had seen it a lot. Just then an idea came to me. I couldn't believe I had never thought of it before! That night I asked my mother if we could plant grapes in the Gibb Street Garden. After considering it awhile, she said no. I asked her why not. She told be she didn't like the idea of being in a place with all those people from different countries. She said they were all poor and dangerous. I went to sleep that night dissapointed. The next day my mother came back from the store with a package of grape seeds. She announced that her love for France and their old grape plantation, had finally one her over. She had decided that planting grapes might be a good idea after all. The next day we went out and picked a spot in the farthest corner, where there was the most space. We planted our seeds right next to a little plot of lima beans. There was a Chinese girl working there. She looked like she was about my age. I listened to what my mother had said, and for the most part avoided her. Then, one day we were both going to get water from the barrels. I just stared at her, looking at her rather disapprovingly. She noticed me staring at her and asked me, fairly annoyed, what I was staring at. I just asked her where she had come from and why she looked so weird. She looked hurt, but then she became angry. She told me she didn't think I looked any more normal than she did. Then she said that she had moved from China, which was probably a better place than where I had come from. I was about to give a sharp retort about how France was more beautiful, but I stopped myself. I decided that she wasn't worth it, and I should just ignore her. I went back to find my mother, who was tending to the grapes. They had been growing well, and were now big and purple. A jewish man was trying to start a conversation with my mother about how much he liked her grapes, but she pretty much ignored him. He didn't seem poor or dangerous, but I figured it was good for my mom not to talk to him anyway. She probably had a logical reason for it. Just then the Chinese girl came back to her lima beans. She glared at me, but then the expression on her face changed to one of pure amazement. She was staring open mouthed at our grapes. A... are those yours, she exclaimed. Suddenly I felt proud, not angry. I told her they were. She said they were the best, most delicious looking grapes she had ever seen. By now my chest was swelling with pride. I told her I could teach her how to plant them later. Then I went home. The next day I talked to the girl. I learned her name was Kim, and that she lived in an apartment across the street. More unbelievably, I learned that her father had also died, and she had never met him. By the time we were finished talking, we were both surprised at how much we had in common. The next day I introduced Kim to my mother. Astonishingly, my mother liked Kim. She and Kim's mother also became friends. Although Kim wasn't Christine, and the garden wasn't a cafe, I was just as happy. I was so glad to have a friend, I didn't even care that she was Chinese and lived in a smaller apartment than I did. My mother and I made many friends in the garden that year. Now every night I still look out my big bedroom window. However, now I see a different view. I see a place full of many different people. People from all over the world. Many different cultures, many different backgrounds, many different colors, but they are all one. One big community where everyone brings their differences. It is everyone's differences that make it so special. I looked out that window and I saw something that was a place even as beautiful as France. That place was the Gibb Street Garden.