Family, for me has been a bitter sweet experience…

Expectations in this world, are as unrealistic as trying to race butterfly’s against one another and placing bets on the outcome.

I was not without and am now not without family who love me deeply, but, life cast many tragic waves in our direction and once the damage is done, you can try to navigate back to the exact spot on the high seas that you came from, but as the saying goes… “You never step into the same river twice.”

This is a big part of why I want to raise children. I’d like to hope that I could give them just a little more than I had, as I’m sure my parents had tried to do for me.

I was a step mother for three little girls about three years ago. 

The father beat them and abused them in many ways.

I was living at his ranch because he needed a sound engineer and my car had just broke down. he couldn't afford to lose me for his business, so he asked me to journey from Reno to the boonies some forty miles out.  

I' tried to ignore him yelling at the little angels each day. 

They were three, four and five.

Nissa, Rukia and Lilliana.

The moment I heard a fist connect to the eldest Lilliana, I bum rushed the prick and beat him up within inches of his life.

I wanted to get away from this toxic man, but those little girls needed me. They never had anyone who really loved them, and I felt unconditional love in my heart again, like I had never felt it previously.

I took them to school. Cooked three meals a day. Helped with homework, comforted them while they dealt with severe ptsd that no innocent child should ever have to deal with

God blessed me to allow me to come into their lives when they needed love so bad and protection. 

The chips fell in a way where, I no longer have any ties to them, but god, do I pray that I did everything I could for them during the time I was lucky enough to have the privilege of caring for them.

I wrote several stories for little ones and for the girls. 

They each still have their own little copies of the stories that I made - arts and craft style, each one was unique to each child.

Those stories are all I have left in regards to the girls.

I pray to god often - tears in my eyes, and I beg god and the arch angels and Christ to keep them safe.

In my prayers, I ask the father to reassign anything good that is coming my way. Take it all and give the girls all of it for, how could I have good fortune in this world if they do not? and even if I did have grace, it would not be good fortune if they still suffered.

My final prayer before I had to leave the little ones was that whatever this cold world has up it’s sleeves for the babies, just please, keep them together. 

I told them this every single day, especially when they fought. “That’s your big (or little) sister. You three must never forget how much you do and will mean to each other and you have to promise to me that no matter what, you girls will stick together.

I stressed this because I wholeheartedly swore before to them that now, now that I was there, I would never ever leave them and I will be their guide always and forever.

When things happened that made me realize that I couldn’t make good on my pledge, the only thing I could do was tell them that they three are what matters and I frantically redoubled my efforts to give them any tool I could I think of that they might need as they continued their trudge through this heartbreaking reality.

I tried to not let the girls know that I had to go, and I was so composed and thought they would just go back to being blissful little ones, but as I walked out the front door for the last time…. Liliana sensed that this was goodbye. 

Her eyes welled up and she had that same terrified look on her face from the last time her father hit her.

“Paige. Where are you going? Why?”

She was shaking like a ship that’s anchor suddenly detached itself from it in the stormy sea.

“Oh, sweetie. Sweetie don’t cry. It’s ok. It’s ok angel. I’m always. Always….I’m with you.”

I couldn’t keep face anymore. 

I cried physically. My throat, my eyes.my face. But I couldn’t let that be the last memory.

I choked back the.

I choked it all back and smiled.

I took a knee and placed my hand on her shoulder. 

She was looking at the ground, just crying her big emerald eyes out.

“Hey, hey, hey. Look at me sweetie.”

It was more difficult to remain seemingly emotionally sound for her than it is to run a three minute mile for a life-long smoker.

Somehow I mustered the courage to do so.

“I love you so much sweetheart.”

She could barely articulate the words but she said she loved me too.

“Well angel. No matter where I go or where the world takes you and your sisters. If you have someone in your heart. You’ll never be without them. What’s in your heart Liliiana. There’s nothing and none one that can take that from you. It will always be yours sweetie.”

Lilliana bravely nodded her head, eyes returning to the hardwood floor and then lassoed her little arms around me and the sounds of her sobs became muffled against my chest.

I put my arms up in the air like a minimum wage bank teller at gun point.

I was in shock.

I wore the same expression you reflexively have when you find yourself in water that is so cold, that, if your brain could work just then, it certainly would not believe that the water was not frozen

Of all my years of bouncing at punk clubs and bartending biker-bars, having guns drawn on me a few times and disarming knife wielding tweakers with a wet floor sign… I never faced shock before. I was in in a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in my twenties that almost killed me. Still no shock.

This was the only time that I finally had the revelation of what people mean when they recount their episodes in life that put them in shock.

I also had never actually been jaw dropped before and until then, I thought it was just an old idiom.

That was the moment I literally felt my heart break into fragments.

Tears cascaded down my cheeks and my eyes kept darting from left to right as if I was desperately searching my mind for any thought or hope that would make this moment hurt less.

When I did not return the hug with my arms, she squeezed even tighter until I knew that if I did not hold her in return it would be just as abusive as her father has been to her.

We hugged and cried for what felt like ten minutes but was probably less than a minute.

I could hear the youngest one, Nissa coming out of her and her sisters bedroom.

She was in her typical and diabolical “ruler of the universe” mood and had stolen some toy from the middle child, Rukia.

Rukia was chasing Nissa into the living room and as soon as Nissa saw Lilliana and I hugging, she stomped her feet, discarded the toy and said: 

“I want to hug Paige!”

Nissa’s little feet pitter pattered towards us and she tried to elbow her big sis out of the way.

I laughed and wiped the tears away.

Rukia always was afraid of missing out on anything her sisters were doing, which is typical for a middle child.

“No, I want a hug!” 

They all tackled me and as light as they all were, I almost fell onto my back.

“Girls, girls! How many times do I have to tell you that hugs are a very good thing to share for sisters!”

Liliana and Nissa we’re both squeaky wheels and had a way of asserting that they wanted attention but little Rukia was too shy to articulate what she needed.

As a middle child myself, I always gave a little more attention to her and she reminded me so much of myself when I was her age.

I rise and both Lilliana and Nissa are hugging my legs. I picked Rukia up in my arms and when she was face to face with me, she saw that I had been crying.

She wipes the tears from my cheeks and she had gone from a pouty mood to a silly one. 

She said “Payy (Paige) why you cwy?” In one of her silly voices. All three of them liked to do silly voices and Rukia repeated this phrase several times, each time the sentence was more and more silly.

I was thankful for this reprieve from the heaviest moment of my life of saying goodbye to Lilliana and because of it, I was able to walk out the door with the bravest and kindest smile I’ve ever mustered.

They say during extreme or traumatic situations, you might see your life flash before your eyes. In this scenario, as I turned the key in the ignition to head back to life before love, it was not my life that flashed before me. It was their lives. Or at least, how I had hoped beyond hope their lives would be.

I saw Rukias first breakup, Nissa asking for help on her resume, Lilliana as prom Queen.

i saw them all three surprising me at whatever bland but steady job I took to provide for them. They have mom’s favorite flowers, marigolds and they knew that because they still had the handwritten stories I wrote for them all those years ago and Lillianas favorite was that one about flowers that had filled their minds with imaginative hopes and breathed new confidence into their worlds that it’s okay to have dreams.

Then, they are at the hospital, taking shifts to stay by my side, one by one as the end comes nearer and nearer for me.

Then it’s my time.

Rukia cries first, then Nissa, but Lilliana, keeps it together. She knows that she has many years left to address the pain but she is brave enough to not let my final moment be a sad one And She puts on the bravest and kindest smile she’s ever mustered.

Sometimes things come to us in life that hurt but there’s a sense of relief that, maybe if you could survive that pain, you might be able to bounce back regardless of whatever comes your way.

This pain may even make you feel relieved, to think that, as a result of that pain… Maybe pain could be on a scale of 1-10 - like how a doctor tries to gauge a medical affliction you have, you know, with those emoji posters in the exam room that starts with a happy emoji at level one and by level ten, the emoji looks like a red faced Eric Cartmen ranting about Jews.

You can’t assign a number to the level of pain for losing someone you loved with all your heart, who is your heart.

Unconditional love is the bravest and most vulnerable mode of loving.

What happens when your daughter, son or sibling that you have dutifully and gently helped to raise from an innocent dove, finds themself plummet far too low to a swamp where snakes and crocodiles flourish, when their natural state was to soar amongst gold and auburn clouds?

What becomes If you’re beloved realizes that pain can surpass the limits of 1-10, maybe even on to infinity?

This realization can end anyone, even someone as innocent and angelic as the one(s) to you who are your everything - the ones you will ever see as a little blameless angel, can be subjected to the damnation of a broken and predatory world.

You subsequently accept what you knew before they came into your life and saved it, what they realized that took them from you.

The pain of life is unimpeachable and inescapable for all.

Pain in this world is infinite.

But you can’t be blamed for trying to place it on a scale.

Maybe you thought that since there can only be so many colors, and only a dozen or less different emotions a human can feel, that pain was as limited and comprehensible.

We try to encourage our little ones or ones that we protect and implore them that they can go anywhere and do anything and that this a a magical world….

but when this magical world takes the magic from them and as a result you as well, you can either change your tune and shield those who you love from this world and retaliate against the things that stole the innocents from angels whom unwittingly illuminated an otherwise dark landscape as well as your very vision itself, or you can accept that, a world that is capable of hurting the most vulnerable ones, despite doing everything you could do, to make existence for them to be a good and kind one - that world can’t be real and maybe reality is just nightmares in between beautiful dreams, and our greatest error is thinking our waking life is existence and our dreams are not real.

I cannot determine one way or another…

But the one thing that I am sure of that is real, 

Is love.

Story for Rukia

Here is a story about a desperate green bird named Senior Verde and his attempt to win the heart of the woman he has adored since he was a chick. 

Her name is Rosita.

 Every mating season since adulthood, Senior Verde has danced for Rosita in front his bright green nest that he decorated just for her. No matter how bright the colors of his nest or no matter how hard he danced for her, she was unaffected by his efforts to court her.

 One day a chameleon came into their village and wandered past senior Verde’s nest.

Senior Verde saw the chameleon and he jumped out of his nest quickly.

“Hey lizard! Hey you with the eyes! My name is Senior Verde, and I could use your help with something especially important to me, please!”

The chameleon paused and gave his attention to Senior Verde.

 “Why, you are the most brilliant green thing I have ever seen in my life! It is nearly the end of our one day a year to find a mate and Rosita is still unimpressed by me. Will you stand next to my green nest and make it even greener for my love?”

The chameleon answered, 

“I am the chameleon of the sunset.”

“That’s great” - said Verde, “Just a little to the left and…PERFECT!

Don’t move an inch.

Look lizard! she’s coming.”

Rosita examined the nest and like the years before, she had very little enthusiasm for Verde and his love for all thing green.

“What about my favorite color, pink?” she asked out loud.

She started to move to the next nest when suddenly the sun began to set, and the sky changed to all the colors of the rainbow. The colors of the sky met the chameleon on the jungle floor and began to change the color of its skin. Rosita paused to watch the display. 

The chameleon changed from blue to green, then to red and then to orange, then purple and gold and finally pink.

Senior Verde yelled at the chameleon and told him to stop changing colors and to immediately return to the most vivid green he could produce but to Verde’s shock, Rosita immediately fell in

love with him for putting on such a wonderful show for her.”

“Lizard! My friend. I am so sorry that I tried to make you into something you are not for my own selfish cause. It was your ability to change colors that won my love’s heart, even though you were the brightest color of green I’ve ever seen; you were also the most beautiful shade of every color that exists!

Please tell me your name so that we can name our first born after you, my dear friend!”

“I am the chameleon of the sunset”        

    Story for Nissa

When we think of beings with awareness, we feel a little alone perhaps; being the only ones we know who are sentient. 

Maybe we are misguided in thinking this.

In fact. I know most certainly that this is not true.

I’m not going to make a case for dolphins or elephants or aliens from somewhere in the inky unknown.

This is a story about a river.

Now, when we see rivers, we generally perceive them as a singular, ever-flowing and unaware mass but, not that this is a revelation, they are made of different currents, traveling together endlessly.

What if I told you that each one of these currents have their own identity, names as well as ambitions and feelings?

This is a story of Sarah, the current.

She travelled on and on with other currents that she knew or came to know along side her. Some of these currents she had known since she first came to be in this world. Others she had met in her travels and they replaced some of the childhood friend currents that at one time, Sarah would never have Imagined parting with.

The banks of the river were lush and green and the trees bore fruit and the fauna ate and played and mated along these banks and many currents were happy to know that they were giving life to an ecosystem.

Beyond these banks, the land was arid and dry and the soil was dead and hard as stones.

Sarah was tired of being lost in a mix of currents that made up the river because she had always wanted to be recognized as an individual and not just a part of a group.

This was a rare sentiment among the currents, however she had met and had known several currents who also felt like they wanted their own identity and to make their own special mark in the world.

These currents inspired her and were the catalyst for her longing to be something more and to divert to another path that was truly her own.

Carry, was Sarah’s best friend growing up and Carry had very wild and almost taboo ideas and was the most individualistic person she had ever met.

One day, Carry couldn’t take being part of the crowd any longer and she told Sarah that she would be leaving the river soon. 

Part of Sarah was deeply afraid for her friend but another part really wished that she would do it and succeed, so that Sarah may have hope to someday do the same.

The day had come and it was a particularly hot day with very low humidity.

The river banked hard to the east near some rapids and without another thought, Carry used all of her strength to bank to the West.

Carry flowed over hard clay without the shade of any trees. 

Carry had finally become her very own stream. 

Sure a river is mightier than a stream but this stream was entirely her own effort and ambitions.

Carry made it as far as half a mile before the sun vaporized her into nothingness and after, there was nothing that would ever signify that she had one been a stream of her own.

Sarah mourned her dear friend and almost abandoned the idea of trying to become her own stream, or day she say, river, someday.

As the years passed, Sarah met many others like Carry who wanted to do and even tried to do the same thing Carry had attempted.

They all failed and burnt up in the sun.

The other complacent currents would “tisk-tisk” about these foolish currents and felt little to no remorse or empathy for their loss.

It had been pouring rain for several days at one time and they had not seen the sun in a while. 

The river flooded here and there and some of even the most conforming currents were lost to the banks of the river due to the storm, never to rejoin the pack.

Sarah decided that this was her chance. 

There was a hard western bend up ahead and with all her might, she went to the east instead.

She heard some of her friends calling after her to come back but she just kept going.

The storm lasted long enough for Sarah to survive solo, and by the time the weather had returned to normal, green grass and large bushes had grown around Sarah’s stream. 

Years passed, and now Sarahs stream dwarfed her home river in size by almost double.

Her banks were green and the trees bore fruit and the fauna ate their fill and played joyfully.

Story for Lilliana

   Betty June loved all her flowers with all her heart and that love did not stop at the seeds. She knew that each one of the seeds had a special gift stored inside and she was overjoyed to see the gifts they gave each time one would grow.

   In Betty's flower shop, it was considered cruel to keep seeds within pouches to sell to the customers. Instead, they were contained within clear jars, so they may gaze in wonder about the flower shop at all the plants that used to be little seeds just like they were. 

    Jeb was especially eager to grow as soon as possible. As far back as he could remember, he had always desired to become a rose. He was not like most other seeds in the jar who had not figured out what they wanted to become yet.

Jeb wondered how the other seeds could have any doubt about what they should become in adulthood. Roses were beautiful and cherished as gifts of affection from lover to lover. They also had thorns which could prick those who we’re not delicate enough and do not appreciate their beauty.

The goal for Jeb was to be chosen as a flower that will be gifted to someone to show affection. Jeb considered that life would be easy for him, seeing as he already had the answers to his future, or at least an idea of what he will become.

    One day a man came to Debbie’s shop and purchased a handful of seeds from Jeb’s jar. Jeb was one of the lucky ones to get picked. He squealed with joy the entire ride to his new home where he would turn into a beautiful Rose.

 Jeb was given his own pot with rich soil. The other seeds from Jeb’s jar were in the garden too; each having their own pot to grow in.

  Jeb joined the conversation his neighbors were having around him and soon found himself bragging about how quickly he would turn into the most wonderful shade of red they had ever seen. 

One neighbor expressed that he could not understand why Jeb wanted to be a rose so bad.

Another seed told Jeb that he doubted that anyone of them would turn into a rose at all, nor did they want to. They went on to say that it would be embarrassing having to deal with all the attention that roses generate.

  A few weeks passed and one morning Jeb noticed that nearly all the other pots in the garden 

had budded.

Little green leaves could be seen on the tops of all the pots surrounding Jeb.

This worried him deeply. Why had he not started to grow yet? He was exhausted from trying so hard to grow each day. He would stay up at night later than the others and stare at the moon, hoping it would help him grow.

   A few months passed and now it was clear to Jeb that the other seeds were turning into blackberry bushes. Every one of them had begun to produce their first berries. 

 Jeb was not a berry bush. He knew that. How could he possibly become something that did not even have a flower? Sure, they had thorns like roses, and that was sort-of appealing to Jeb, but 

twas simply not what he wanted to be all in all.

 A year passed and Jeb had not grown into anything.

     He hadn’t given up on becoming a rose and knew he never would. This thought scared him. If all he wanted to become was something that he could not be, then would he turn out to be nothing at all? He would even settle for becoming a blackberry bush. They were not adored such as roses and no lover would ever give one as a gift, but they sort of looked like Roses and at this point it was about survival for Jeb.

  Jeb pictured all the other flowers besides Rose’s that he used to see at the flower shop.

He tried with all his will to grow into a morning glory for a few days and then after that decided that he was to flower into a daffodil; that phase lasted for a few weeks.

He even tried to talk to the bushes about his new identities as various flowers and pretended to have as much enthusiasm about being a lilac as he had shared about becoming a rose.

The bushes ignored the tiny sound coming from their former peer and around that time, most of the bushes had resolved to flat out ignore Jeb when he spoke. 

   The man who’s garden they lived in came out one day and picked the season’s wealth of berries from the bushes around Jeb and the bushes were all very pleased that their fruits were being so thoroughly enjoyed. 

  Finally, the man came out to the garden again one day and looked down into Jeb’s pot. He grabbed Jeb and placed him in a tiny jar and put the jar in his car.

Jeb was nervous at first but soon ecstatic to be in Betty June's flower shop once again.

  The man complained to Betty that this seed had not grown into a bush. Debbie exchanged Jeb for another seed. Jeb could not return to the jar with the other seeds, he knew that. He was too old and didn’t grow. He was certain that he was to be thrown into the trash. 

   He gazed at the Roses that he grew up admiring within the flower shop and he wept. 

   Betty loved her seeds too much to just throw Jeb in the trash. She tried a few different mixtures of soil and exposed Jeb to different amounts of lights each day.

Jeb sat in his new pot and thought to himself that Debbie was sure to give up trying to make him grow, but sure enough, suddenly Jeb began to sprout little green leaves. 

  Within a month, Jeb was a full-grown Marigold.

Betty said to herself that he was the most beautiful Marigold she had ever grown.

  A young man came into the shop shortly after Jeb had grown and asked for the most beautiful flower he could buy for his wife. Betty didn’t need any time to decide which one to send the man home with. The man agreed with Betty that Jeb was certainly the most beautiful flower he had ever seen.