I consider his marshmallow roasting technique: expectant, leaning forward, cautious not to catch his treat aflame as he rolls the stick between his hands like he’s molding spaghetti out of Play-Doh.
All tagged son
I consider his marshmallow roasting technique: expectant, leaning forward, cautious not to catch his treat aflame as he rolls the stick between his hands like he’s molding spaghetti out of Play-Doh.
Not quietly at ninety, a few mourners, a cleric using dismal platitudes. But disastrously. Throngs crammed into pews.
Whenever I visit we mostly sit as familiar strangers and talk about the tea. Once in a while, though, there’s a small window, five minutes max, when her eyes sparkle.
“We’ve been coming here for six weeks, and it works for J and I, but does it work for our son? Will they love him and his differences?”
I’m in my final year of high school and recently announced plans to go to art school, a life-long dream.
I’m staring at your hands. You’re using them to clarify medical words; to make shapes; to draw diagrams to help me understand what my brain can’t make sense of …
My son and I, we’ve been to so many doctors together. We had to go to several every week when he was little to try to get him better.
“Rock, scissors, paper, shoot!” His tiny hand forms a fist which I tenderly enclose within my own, wishing as I do that I’ll never have to let it go.
On Victoria Day mama warned me about playing with fireworks in the park.
At age 56 Mom went for her college degree and I admired that. But algebra eluded her, so I offered tutelage.
"Hurry up in the shower!" I yell, as my son's bathing quickly drains all the hot water from the tank. This was never a problem in the school years, when there was a natural order to things and school started early in the morning.
A line ran down the middle of the hallway in the DePaul Behavioral Health Center in New Orleans. You didn’t cross it.
Jasper raced into the house and hollered, “Adrian’s been hit by a car.” I rolled my eyes. (Jasper lived a life of excitement even when none existed.)
Carried into the room, you were still and quiet. I thought to myself, “He is incredibly handsome.” My new son.
I wait, masked as they wheel her out. Six feet away, also masked, a shrunken white thing. In clothes I've never seen before. I tell her my name. She repeats it, as a question.