Pages of Yesterday

Leaves of Grass

I watch my daughter

Her lips puckered up against the thin strip of aquarium glass

Staring bug-eyed into the water that consumes her

She seems as if she is stretching the confinements of the tank

Farther than they really are

Creating a never ending sea of golden nugget pleco’s

Her blue eyes swim back and forth with the fish

Stopping on one that is floating in the corner

She comes into the kitchen nonchalantly

Where I am rolling peaches in a ginger crust

And asks me “mommy why does Calvin float instead of swim?”

I slow down the rolling of the peach and think to myself

Then take her hand gently and bring her towards me

I tell her to raise her arms and then I hoist her on the counter

She looks at me with not an ounce of sadness in her eyes

I brush whiskers of her honeydew hair from her face

I tell her to open her hand, and then place a fresh peach on her palm

I tell her “sweetheart, this peach is the sun

Every day the sun rises and wraps us in his sweet juices

And we taste as much of him as we can until he must

Blanket us with the stars.

Calvin is like the sun, he must go but will return again, as something else”

Her eyes flicker with anger and grief

“but mommy I liked Calvin just the way he was”

“baby, do you like the grass?”

My daughter smiles suddenly at the thought of lazy afternoons

Rolling under clouds, in the long Australian grasses

“yes mommy I love the grass, it tickles me”

“well sweetheart, if you come with me I’ll show you something”

I took a net and scooped my daughter’s fish from the tank

Placing his lifeless body in the center of my palm

I took my daughter outside and brought her to a dirty patch of barren field

“mommy what are we going to do?”

I sit on the ground and tell her to sit beside me and start digging

I watch her chubby little fingers scratch into the face of nature

Clawing at the premise of an idea

“mommy is calvin going inside the hole?

“yes honey”

“but why mommy?

Her eyes brittle with tears

As I place her favorite fish in its grave next to her

“remember when mommy said Calvin must return as something new?”

“yes mommy I remember”

“Well Calvin is going to make grass grow here, Calvin will become grass”

My daughter began to cry like someone older than she

She was silent, self consumed, and then she broke out in sobs

Then I couldn’t help but do the same, watching my child come to terms with life

We waded together in the pools of first time misery

We sprinkled salt, sorrow, and somedays’ on to Calvin’s grave

Then saying our last goodbye’s I held my daughter in my arms

Cradling her back into the house

Three mornings later, after her discovery of death

Stricken with a pale face and eyes the size of fresh blueberries

She screamed for me to come outside

Dragging me through the dirt and dew of a new day

She said “mommy! Mommy! Look!”

And pointed to the barren patch of dirt where we had mourned only days before

Only today it wasn’t barren

Today there were leaves of grass