YOU SHOULD HAVE ASKED

When I was in grade school the teacher called my Mom for a conference. I was too young to be invited to that meeting, but from what I understand it went something like this.
"Mrs. Neff, I don't know how to tell you this, but your daughter is very depressed. We feel she needs to be "checked" by someone."
I'm sure my Mother did not leave that meeting turning handsprings.  She probably felt a little depressed herself after that.
During the weeks that followed, my Mother reached out to family members, church family and probably lots of other people I will never know about.
Finally after about of month she took me to a doctor.
He asked me so many questions. Some of them seemed silly, even to me, a six year old child. I remember how his glasses were perched on his nose, and he always nodded his head before he asked me another question.
He asked me questions about my family, and I believe one of the last questions he asked me was, "what's your favorite color?"
I smiled, finally a question that made sense to me.
"It's purple", I smiled.
He nodded, and then said, "Well then why do you color everything black?"
And my obvious answer, to me was, "because all the other crayons in my box were broken. That was the only one I had, I never used it."
They should have asked.