How an Earthworm Changed my Life

Dirt. That’s what I remember most about my childhood… My mother was 16 and my father 19 when they were married on New Year’s Day 1983. Nine months and nineteen days later I was born. We were living in a single-wide house trailer on two acres of land that had huge oak trees which prevented grass from growing in the yard. It was heaven. Mississippi gets hot during the summer and in 1989 I was in Kindergarden with my best friend for as long as I can remember – Cindy. Cindy and I were inseperable. We were “best-friends”. Once I began school I realized that Cindy and I were not the only girls in the world our age. It was an eye-opening experience for me because I was used to playing with her and no one else but friends from church.

One day at Elementary school I decided to give in to peer pressure and pick on my best friend. I thought that it would make me popular and so I devised an ingenious idea (for a six year old) to have Cindy humiliated in front of our peers. I took an earthworm and broke him in half. I offered half to Cindy (in front of a gaggle of girls our age). I told her that everyone eats them and I even told her that I would eat the “butt-end” because I was such a good friend and she could have the head. I told her this to entice her into eating it.

She ate it. For years I lived with that regret and other humiliations I bestowed upon my “best-friend”. I cannot describe the torture I inflicted upon Cindy those early years. I once put a bugger in her roll in the cafeteria and she ate it. Then I said very loudly what I had done.

Now we are in our mid-twenties and she and I are still best friends. I have apologized and tried to make up for causing her hell as a child; However, I have learned through this experience that no matter what the popular kids say – your true friends do not cheer and jeer when someone is hurting. Your true friends stand beside and behind you when you are in need. I know that those scars have not healed completely and probably never will… but I will not forget and I will teach my children to be gracious and loving toward every other chlid regardless of peer pressure.

That is how an earthworm changed my life. I made huge mistakes and I was forgiven. Some people are not so lucky. I will always remember that lesson. I hope that others can learn and benefit from the confessions of an Elementary school bully like me. I was prettier than most and smarter than most – yet I still fell to peer pressure – in Kindergarden. It is never too early to innoculate your children against being bullied… but also remember that every person has the propencity to be a bully also.