Tiger Lilies
I never thought much of them. To me, they were just some tall and ugly wildflowers in my least favourite colour. Orange. But my father saw Tiger lilies differently. They served another purpose for him. He’d summon us to the side of our house on the first day of school, the place where unkempt foliage […]
Embracing Strangers
As the driver pulls into the ambulance bay at the hospital, a wave of relief washes over me. Now that we have arrived, I can finally exhale. This is not our first ambulance ride to this world-class medical center, and I am more than confident that the team of preeminent medical experts will be able to fix whatever ails my mother, as they have so many times before. Yet, witnessing my mother in anguish guts me to my core. I’m holding my mother’s child-sized hand while the EMTs wheel her gurney down the long hallway toward the emergency room. My mother
Stages
It cowers in the corner, newly born. I turn my spite-soaked back, riddled with resentment and pull the thin veil to sink beneath its cover. I will not watch it crawl, but it breathes, a shadow at the edge of my own threatening to merge. It waits, as I do for nothing while I ignore its cries and mine. And I turn to stone silently refusing the darkness at my feet. ~ It screams a piercing shrill that grips my core. It pokes and presses every bruise, clawing at my skin with high-pitched scratches. Enraged, I seize it. A thunderous wrath
Strong Enough to Withstand the Loss
Grandma Dee called friends and family to report that she had twins. We went the very next day to her high-rise Baltimore apartment. Shaded by adjacent buildings, the twins were thriving in the filtered light on the sill of the east-facing window. Grandma Dee, nearly 100, was thriving too. We oohed and aahed, as people do, at the jubilant faces of the twin blooms on the phalaenopsis orchid. Grandma Dee beamed. I was in awe of her ability to grow such exotic life forms in her living room. Their leaves were deep green and smooth, their stems strong, their roots thick
