innocence lost and innocence gained

It was Christmas and I was 8 years old or so, I received what every little girl I knew wanted, an easy bake oven. I can’t tell you how many cakes I baked in that oven. It was one of my favorite gifts for many years. About five years later I began telling my parents over and over, “I want to die” and 2 years after that, at 15, I was brutally raped. A quiet, shy, fair-skinned freckled girl suddenly turned into a frightened, emotionally dead girl who felt very uncomfortable in her own skin. My fairytale dreams, my realistic dreams and my future all died that fateful night. For the next 18 years I was lost and still emotionally dead inside. Christmas. 2006. Age 33. A large box wrapped under OUR tree. i open it. i see an easy bake oven. my swain, the man who opened my heart, had decided i deserved, if only for a night, to be that quiet, shy, fair-skinned, freckled girl again. cakes were baked that night. and several more since. innocence lost and innocence gained. i cannot think of a gift greater than that.