The Soccer-Playing T-Rex

You had been too quiet for too long when I went to look for you. I found you standing at your parents’ window that overlooked the backyard. I walked over and kneeled next to you. You were so focused on what was going on in the yard that you barely noticed me.

“What are you looking at?” I asked you. I had looked outside and didn’t see anything.

“Kardhu (the family’s golden retriever).” You replied your eyes never leaving the scene you were seeing.

“What is Kardhu doing?” I asked watching you.

“Soccer.” You replied with such conviction that I almost believed it was what you were seeing.

“He’s playing soccer?” I asked. You nod, and then you laugh.

“What’s funny?” I asked him.

“T-rex.” You said as you glance at me with your laughing blue eyes.

My eyes grew wide, and I whispered, “Kardhu is playing with a T-rex?”

You laugh and look at me, your gaze piercing my soul with a curious look as if you were gauging if I was really seeing what you were seeing or not.

“Who’s winning?” I asked you. You think about this for a second before saying, ‘Kardhu is.”

“He is?” I ask. You look at me, and I can tell you want to tell me something, but your words aren’t quite there yet. You shorten your arms like a T-rex and start growling at me.

“Oh because Kardhu has four good legs and T-rex has two?” You nod with such a grin on your face, and you come at me with your T-rex legs, and we dissolve into a fit of giggles on the floor. As I look at you, I can’t believe an almost three-year-old has such an imagination, and I hope it is something you never lose.

Cravings

I woke up this morning craving a dish called chicken divan. My mom’s recipe includes broccoli, chicken, mayonnaise, cream of mushroom soup, lemon juice, shredded cheese, and bread crumbs. It is a total comfort food indulgence. My mom made this recipe for years, and it has always been one of my favorites. Steaming hot served over white rice; there’s hardly anything better on a cold winter night. So, I went on a hunt to find the recipe. She had initially seen it in The Boston Globe decades ago and had clipped it out. After many years, she put it in a plastic sleeve to protect it. After looking for that for a long time, I came up empty-handed and saddened thinking I’d never be able to replicate it without that aged and yellowed piece of newspaper. Finally, in the last place I looked, I spotted a newer white notecard with “chicken divan” written in her handwriting. Then I remembered, during her final years, she started handwriting out recipes that she knew I liked so I would be able to make them once she was no longer here. Holding it and looking at it, I expected to feel sadness. But I didn’t. It was more of a feeling of comfort. She was thinking ahead to this moment. My mom is still taking care of me, and that has comforted me more than the dinner I am going to curl up on the sofa tonight and eat.

The Birthday Orange

My last post was pretty intense, and I think it might have given the wrong impression. Overall, I had a great birthday on Sunday. I did eat birthday cake, which was delicious. And I opened two cookbooks from my sister which I’ve had fun looking through and planning future meals with. It was just that moment of time when I looked at my cake where I was just inundated with memories of birthdays of old. From childhood to adulthood, 46 birthdays that I had with my mom. The one that really stood out in my mind was 1999. She had had a very close call with blood poisoning the summer of 1998 and was still recovering by the time January rolled around. When I came downstairs that morning, there sitting on the kitchen counter was an orange with a burning candle sticking out of it. She knew she wasn’t able to bake a cake, so she improvised. She thought it was a silly gesture, but it meant more to me than she ever knew.  I knew this birthday would be a difficult day, but I thought it wouldn’t be harder than my mom’s birthday or Christmas had been. It was just looking at that cake that caused a very large burble of primal grief to come rushing to the surface of my consciousness. The intensity of the feelings and emotions were just so overwhelming and caught me off guard completely. At that moment, I missed her so terribly and felt the rawness of that loss. That rawness stuck with me into the next day when it expressed itself in that poem. I posted it because I’ve come to see my blog as a safe space to express what I’m going through; the good and the bad. To be honest, it’s the first time I’ve felt so safe to say what is on my mind so freely. So, in a roundabout way, this post is a thank you to all of you who have accepted me into your worlds and lives. Like that birthday orange, you will never know the full extent of what that has meant to me.

A Christmas Haunting

The closer Christmas approaches

The more I feel you near.

Memories won’t stop unfolding

And it’s leaving me in tears.

You’re ghosting all the corners

Of every single room

Tis the season of light and merriment

And I’m deep in grief and gloom

I’m hearing snatches of your voice

As if your still here with me

I see the brightness of your love

in the lights on the Christmas tree

I don’t know how to do this

The holidays without you

How do I heal this ache in my soul

And figure out what to do.

 

This poem doesn’t want to be finished. I’ve been trying for several days now, and this is where it wants to end. Maybe once I get through this challenging time I’ll be able to look back and come up with an ending, I don’t know.

The Post-It Woven Patchwork

Slowly…slowly… I am losing my mind

I can feel it happening, one thing at a time

Like the sands in an hourglass

Slowly slipping through.

Falling into some dark abyss.

I don’t want to bid adieu.

To all the times in days gone by

Whether good or bad.

They are still my memories

And losing them is sad.

So now I’m obsessively writing

Jotting everything down

Every thought and memory

Scraps of paper now surround

This little spot I sit in

With my paper and pen

So when memories are no more

I’ll be covered in them.

Like a post-it woven patchwork

A wondrous little covering

I’ll be wrapped up in them

And old memories I’ll be discovering.