My daughter and myself walked into the market. We were looking for something new. Something that would spark the imagination. There were stores that had some of the latest electronic gadgets around but nothing that really caught Maria’s attention. She looked up with her brown eyes and said “Daddy I’m looking for a friend.”, “Don’t you have a lot of friends at school?” I asked her. She looked at me and said “I want my own friend. A friend that will never leave me.”

We had moved around a lot with my work and knew that she was longing for a friend that she could grow up with. Someone she could talk to about anything, and share her deepest thoughts with without worrying about them getting out to others. The search would continue for the next hour until we found a small shop on the corner, and that is when I knew we had found what Maria was looking for.

Maria walked right over to what she would call her new friend. The little white person is what I called it, but Maria corrected me. She told me, as she held its hand, it is my new friend. I couldn’t help but snap a picture of her with her new friend.

To this day even though Maria is grown I show her this picture and we remember this day with fondness. She has her friend to this day and shares all of her secrets with him and doesn’t worry about her secrets getting out.