Friday, April 01, 2005

My mom doesn't have a grave, she has a tree. I went there today for the first time since it was planted, a year and a half ago.

I tied a ribbon to it and felt like the ugly narrator of an Oprah book. Like I should've dug my knees into the muddy earth and cried out, "Mother, my life is so very sad because you're dead and we have no money and some strange guy got me pregnant because I didn't know what sex was! Boo hoo!" Which is not true. But would be if I were the ugly narrator of an Oprah book.

What I said wasn't that different, though. I told her how I make just enough to take care of me. About how I was betrayed by my friends and am almost done with school and am writing a book that she would hate, but would she put in a good word to the publishing gods for me, anyway? I promised I'd fill the birdfeeders hanging from the tree so that birds would nest there in the spring. I think I'll go back in a couple of days to do that. Either late at night or early in the morning, when there won't be people walking by giving me funny looks for talking to the tree outside the preschool classroom.


posted at 4:21 PM |