Here Lies Hope

Just before I slipped into the operating room for my D & C, my Mama caught my arm and whispered,
If you're scared chiquita sing a song. Think of your song right now and sing it loudly.

Under a fiery Autumn sun, I couldn't get that song out of my head as we planted the tree that my dear hermana Bgirl gave us in memoriam, a plant she chose especially because it blooms in the dead of winter even when the ground is hard, cold and unforgiving.

There is something beautiful about this kind of resilience, the notion that this tender creature can thrive under the harshest of conditions.

It felt good to dig the hole, to feel the pulse of the earth in my hands once again. I hadn't been outside in days and I'd forgotton how easily you can get lost in the trance of the garden. I could hear the neighbor's chickens pecking and scratching, the wind shaking the remaining leaves off our fig tree, the laughter of children playing in the park.

As I buried the roots of the tree, I also buried with it all the emptiness, melancholy and loss of the last few days. I buried fear, despair and uncertainty too.

And in its place I planted hope.

I am in the wilderness You are in the music In the man's car next to me Somewhere in my sadnessI know I won't fall apart completely When I need to be rescued And I need a place to swimI have a rock to cling to in the stormWhen no one can hear me callingI have you I can sing to -Sade