Playing Talitha

²¹ When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. ²² Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. ²³ He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” ²⁴ So Jesus went with him. . . . ³⁵ While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” ³⁶ Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” ³⁷ He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. ³⁸ When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹ He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” ⁴⁰ But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). ⁴² Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. ⁴³ He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

 

-Mark 5

 

Today while i was cooking dinner, The Professor played with the girls in the living room. From the kitchen, i overheard the BabyGirl tell The Professor, "I'm going to lay down over here and sleep, and i'll be Talitha. Then you will be Jesus, and you will say to me, 'Talitha, come!' and i'll get up! Then i'll eat. Okay, Daddy—I mean Jesus?"

 

I was pretty amazed, because i didn't think she'd ever heard that Bible story in such a degree of detail. I know that she really likes it in the Jesus Storybook Bible. I haven't read that section to her in a while, but i didn't remember it mentioning Talitha koum.

 

Well as she continued to play this game, it became apparent that she thought Talitha was the little girl's name. All through dinner, we had to refer to her as Talitha. If we slipped up and called her the BabyGirl, she immediately corrected us: "No! I'm not the BabyGirl! I'm Talitha!"

 

I was then christened "Talitha Mama," and Bright Eyes was "Talitha Bright Eyes." The Professor split his time between being Jesus and "Talitha Daddy." For whatever reason, he felt uncomfortable playing the role of Jesus. He kept trying to get out of it, and she kept insisting that he was Jesus. I volunteered to be Jesus for a little while, but she didn't go for it. A red-haired person cannot play the Lily Maid, and a mama cannot play Jesus.

 

This was how she insisted on eating her dinner:

 

She laid her head on the table and closed her eyes. Jesus told her, "Talitha come!" She raised her head triumphantly with a huge smile. We all exclaimed with joy, "She's alive!" Then she took one bite of her food, laid her head back down, and started over from the top.

 

After all 20 bites of this, she and i went outside to pick some of our neighbor's cherry tomatoes. At the beginning of the summer, those tomatoes were DELICIOUS. We looooved them. They were awesome to just pop in your mouth like grapes.

 

Now, however, they are oppressive. If i never see a cherry tomato again it will be too soon. The Nice Lady scolds us if there are too many red tomatoes on her plants. She comes over and gives us a stern talking-to about how we need to pick them right before they turn red so the critters don't get them. She really doesn't like to see red tomatoes hanging on the vines.

 

Today there were approximately 125 red cherry tomatoes, and i knew we were going to get in trouble if we didn't grab those suckers.

 

Well, at the beginning of the summer, the BabyGirl/Talitha really enjoyed picking tomatoes. Now she's totally over it. She gleefully consents whenever i ask her to accompany me, but she just uses it as a ruse to get outside. As soon as we are out there, she abandons me for her favorite project: digging in the dirt where our internet cable was buried, where we are desperately trying to grow new grass to cover up the dirt. Turns out, grass seed has a hard time sprouting when it is regularly tampered with. The weeds, however, are more than happy to propagate the grassless dirt.

 

It's somewhat of a pain in the butt to be forced into management of a grove of tomato vines that i didn't plant myself. They are all intertwined with 100 other things. One of which is this enormous 8-foot-tall allergy-inducing ragweed-looking thing. You need a beekeeper's outfit to interact with those tomato plants. Between the 8-foot ragweed and the millions of bugs, i come out of there itching, sneezing, and puffy-eyed.

 

While i was fighting with the Nice Lady's tomato vines, the BabyGirl was constantly running off. I yelled her name sternly in my I Mean Business voice. Then i would see an auburn tuft of hair pop up from behind a bush or around the corner of the garage, and a little voice replied, "I'm Talitha!!!" So then i would have to yell, "Talitha, get back over here or you're going inside!"

 

Finally i extracted a sufficient number of red tomatoes to hopefully abate the Nice Lady's wrath. We went inside and Jesus put Talitha to bed.