The Princess

On the surface, our daughter, Margareta, appeared to be a tom-boy. With three older brothers to keep up with, she was as rough and tumble as they come, and never afraid of getting down and dirty. Her legs and knees would rarely – if ever – be free of scrapes and bruises from all the climbing and adventures with the boys. While at the baseball and soccer games of her brothers, she most often played with the younger brothers that were also on the sidelines.

With that said, Margareta never lost sight of the fact that she was a girl. While her brothers rarely, if ever, cared what clothes they had on, Margareta definitely had a unique style and a love of clothes that she somehow inherited from her dad’s side of the family. She changed outfits many times each day. She loved dresses, clothing with sparkles, pinks and purples, bows and frills. She watched princess movies and wanted to wear makeup. She was impossible to categorize. Neither “tom-boy” or “girly-girl” — she was whatever suited her in each moment.

At three, she was invited to the birthday party of one of the few girls she knew. According to the invitation, it was a princess party! You should have seen the sparkle in her eyes when she heard this. We ran to her closet to see what dresses could be appropriate for a princess. There were a few to choose from, but the decision was easy: a maroon dress with a tulle skirt and a gold knit cardigan top. The day of the party finally came, and with her princess dress on, we were off to the party at Super Franks.

When we got there, we found the princess room, and discovered that they had princess dress up clothes. The host of the party remarked that Margareta already had on a beautiful princess dress, but not one to be left out, Margareta found a matching fairy “dress” to put on over the dress she was already wearing. Then, with a tiara on top, she emerged as one of seven princesses at the party. She partook of tea and cake — and for an hour, was a princess through and through. I only have one picture that captured the moment, but will forever remember my little princess and how happy she was that day (pictured on the bottom right of the photo).

Submitted by Maria Kubitz in memory of her daughter, Margareta Kubitz.