Written by Olivia M Ojeda, February 2018
It’s there she thought. The shady garden with beams of sunlight that danced down where the trees would permit. The garden of pink roses with thorns that her mother adored, two humungous palm trees of sandy brown, one mulberry tree who’s branches reached to the rest of the yard. The garden of grass that her father relentlessly watered and cared after, the same grass that roots of a lemon tree sprouted from and nestled in. The garden where she danced with those beams of sunlight allowing them to kiss her skin here, and caress her skin there. A fence that made it their own little world. With two parts of the fence surrounded by rocks, the other part was hidden by monstrous green bushes that gave reign to the imagination.
“Home” she smiled. For she had been searching for this place. She thought she lost it on her way, but what is home can never truly be lost. Yes it’s true we lose things when we grow. But what is home can never truly be lost.
One warm easter morning she and her little brother were (as every year) given baskets full of candy from their mother. They took their baskets to the shady garden where the trees guarded them from the heat. Onto the cool grass came the candy from their baskets. Tiny wrapped chocolates in the shape of eggs, chocolate lollipops, a chocolate bunny wrapped in tin foil painted with bright colors, jelly beans that were entangled in fake grass that, in contrast to their grass that caressed their bare legs, was comical.
In the shady garden she learned to ride a bicycle. A red one that her older sister once rode. Up and down the length of the garden she rode all morning and into the afternoon. In the shady garden she laughed, and in the shady garden she cried. She would grow there, in the shady garden. The garden in which she was raised.
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