On a street known as Weldon, there was a house.  If you passed that house before eight thirty each morning, you were bound to see a tall girl walking towards the mailbox.  The sight was so regular, and so weird, that the street was soon known as Weird Weldon.  If you addressed a letter to Weird Weldon, the post office would know which Weldon you meant, for there was only one Weird Weldon, and that was the one with the girl and her mailbox.

That girl didn’t always go to the mailbox.  In fact, once Weldon was a very normal street, but that was before Amie came along.  Amie was the only weird one on Weldon, but she was so well-known by the inhabitants of Weldon, that she renamed the whole street.  Not on purpose, of course, for she knew she wasn’t weird, but that was besides the point, wasn’t it?

Who was Amie, anyway?  Why was she weird?

If you passed 83 Weldon Road at eleven o’clock almost every day, you would have heard music.  The fortepiano was making strains, first loud, and then soft, coaxed alive by a brunette, whose head bobbed up and down with the music.  Her head wasn’t supposed to bob up and down, at least, her piano teacher told her it ruined her performance, but that head still resolutely bobbed as she hit first the G chord, and moved on to the D7.

Was it weird for Amie to enjoy the music she herself made?  Perhaps not, but the instrument that she played on was weird. Made in the 1880s, Amie prided herself in her upright piano.  The beautiful carving on the front of the instrument was often stroked by admiring hands, and Amie didn’t mind when the pedal refused to work, or the top of a key come off.  It would be fixed, because that piano was a piece of art, and it was beautiful.

If you came by the house at one in the afternoon, you would have seen a freckled face constantly peeping through the window, looking towards the mailbox.  Each time it saw the little red flag still up, it sighed and disappeared.  When the white truck finally rumbled down Weird Weldon, Amie would be sticking her feet into her used cowboy boots, and darting outside to find the treasures in the mailbox.

Perhaps that is what made her weird, or perhaps it was the boots.  They were men’s shoes, and bigger than her daddy’s shoes, but she wore them.  She wore them so much, she had to bring them to a shoe repair store, where they were sewn up again.  The boots were often dirty, but they were worn every day, even on Sundays.  They were Amie’s trade mark.  That and her two dutch braids.

If you came by Weird Weldon at four, you would often find Amie in her room, the strains of a violin or the twang of a banjo filling your thoughts.  Amie was a strange one, and to her, nothing was better than the feel of strings under her fingers.  Of course, the strings had once burned the fingers, but now calluses had stopped the pain.  Amie was a musician at heart.

But she didn’t often share her music.  How could one, without making a video?  Or playing in a concert?  Both she wanted to do, but didn’t.  And then she found another outlet for her music.  Black and white, the words flowed across the paper, making a melody.  Perhaps it wasn’t a song, but it was a story, and the best of songs tell a story.  And the best of stories sing a song.

Amie was weird because she found beauty in ‘most everything.  In the Southern accents around her, in the dried up leaf, in the envelope.  She found beauty in words, words strung together to make a story, a story that sang.  She found beauty in children, for a child’s laughter reminded her of a classical song.  She found beauty in her elders, their old faces showing that time had indeed passed over their heads, prayerfully making them wise.  But finding beauty wasn’t the only thing that made Amie weird.

Amie was weird because she was punctual, at least, she tried to be.  Every minute had sixty seconds in it, and she knew she wasted many of those precious seconds.  She grieved over the lost ones as she strived to use the ones left to the best of her ability, because you can never buy time.  Time is only there once, and before you know it, it is gone.  Time is as fleeting as the wind, and Amie knew, feared, and used Time.

Amie was also weird because she thought long and deeply.  She questioned what people told her, and worked to find the truth.  Once she believed something, she held on to that belief tightly.  She believed that there was only one Way to heaven, and that was by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and believing that He had been crucified on a cross for the sins of His children.  And she believed that He rose again from the dead, and is even now preparing a home for those that will join Him.

Amie stood out from the crowd, and sometimes, it hurt, because she wasn’t courageous or strong.  She longed for the approval of people.  Slowly, ever so slowly, she learned that the praise of people don’t even compare with the smile of her Heavenly Father.  And so?

Amie was happy to be weird.  She was happy to be Amie of Weird Weldon, if that was what her Heavenly Father wanted her to be.

~~Amie~~