She was a wildflower, Beautiful, untamed, Vibrant, yet fragile. She was easily plucked, Perfect for centerpieces To be seen during special occasions, And admired next to other pretty faces. But that's not wildflowers are meant for.
Wildflower
The most important thing I learned in second grade
Note: For the privacy of my old friends, names have been changed in this story.
In second grade, you don’t know much about the world. You don’t know who is in office or who you are going to grow up to be. You don’t know what the latest news is or why everyone is obsessed with that celebrity. What you do know are the names of your friends, & you know when they are not speaking to you.
Second grade was already a difficult year. My friend, Maya, had already decided I wasn’t as cool as she thought, & she had moved on to a new girl to hang out with at recess. My crush found out I liked him & had been avoiding me for weeks. And I had spoken out in class about my special ability to see atoms & molecules, only to discover that wasn’t possible & the fuzzy things I saw on the walls were a sight impediment.
But the worst day was when I came to lunch, & my friends refused to talk to me. I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. I implored Avery & Charlotte, the two brunettes across from me, to please speak with me, to tell me how to make things right. But they remained silent as stone. The following day, they didn’t even give me a chance to speak with them. Instead, they sat at another table with Maya & her new clique, & I was left alone.
Hot tears burned my eyes as I gulped down the sob in my throat. I didn’t understand. I thought I had finally made some real friends. I had spent nearly my first three years of elementary school friendless, but Avery had been the girl to reach out to me one lonely day at recess & spark a friendship that I thought would last forever. Charlotte had been introduced to me not long after, & the three of us, I thought, were inseparable. Even when Maya had decided I was no longer worth her time & had abandoned me to hang out with Aria, Avery & Charlotte had remained by my side. But now, I was alone once again, & it felt even worse than before.
Friday evening, I came home from school with tears streaming down my face. I sat at my dining room table & asked my mother what I had done wrong. She said she was confused because Avery & Charlotte had planned to come over to play that afternoon. When their mothers’ cars pulled into the driveway, my mother told me not to talk about what had happened.
“Just play with Avery & Charlotte as if everything is fine,” my mother said. “Maybe they will forget about whatever they were upset about, & you can all be friends again.”
When Avery & Charlotte came inside, they were strangely silent & shifty. I asked if they wanted to go to the playhouse outside, & they agreed quietly. Together, we trudged down the steep hill in my backyard to the bright yellow & purple playhouse. Just before we reached the structure, I heard Avery & Charlotte stop walking. I froze, unsure if they would follow me inside or not. I could hear them whispering amongst themselves, & I felt myself grow cold, wondering if they were making fun of me.
“Tyler,” Avery called.
“Yeah?” I turned & immediately they lunged at me, their hands in the air, large grins on their faces.
“Surprise,” they shouted. I gaped at them, confused.
“What,” I asked.
“Happy birthday,” they exclaimed. I stared, still confused, & then slowly a smile grew across my face.
“You threw me a surprise party,” I asked, bewildered.
“Yeah, come on!” Avery said. The two of them grabbed my hands & dragged me inside to where my mother had decorated the house with banners & balloons.
“We’re sorry we didn’t talk to you this week,” Avery said. “We were so excited! We were worried we would let the surprise slip.”
“We knew your birthday was this weekend, & we wanted to surprise you,” Charlotte said.
In second grade, you don’t know what the latest advances in medicine are, or where you are going to go to college. You also don’t know the proper etiquette for throwing a surprise party. But you do know who your true friends are, & you know just how special it is to have people who want to make you feel loved.
Broken Pieces
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
-Rumi
The first thing we were taught when we were young, Was that each person is unique and special. We are all different, But our differences are what make the world bright and interesting. On the playground, we distinguished each other by the games we liked to play, Whether it was kickball or playing with dolls. We did not care about gender or skin color. We were too young to know about sexual orientation. Our political knowledge only extended to knowing a mighty president existed, And ruled over our great country. Religion did not arise in conversation. We cared only about ribbons and bows, Four leaf clovers and the grass between our toes. At what point did we begin to notice the variations in the color of skin? When did we begin to believe it was strange to love someone like us, Or that differences in our beliefs should divide us? When did the bullying begin, The blatant disregard for other’s feelings, The cruel empowerment of a few to believe others are below them? When did boys pulling pigtails become men unbuttoning blouses? When did girls start painting their eyes and telling lies? When did they begin to dwindle away or expand before our eyes, As food became an escape or an enemy? When did other’s expectations begin to weigh on our minds, And cause life itself to feel heavy and wearisome? As our lives crumbled, we would swear we were fine. Meanwhile scars began to appear on arms, Alcohol burned down throats, And love became only a word instead of comforting arms. We compared ourselves to one another, In competitions where no one won, And we judged one another for trivial things, Things far more trivial than the games we played on the playground. We judged each other for skin color, for love, for basic human beliefs, We judged each other for our capabilities, our appearance, our family income, We judged each other because we couldn’t face the judgment That we inflicted upon ourselves, And we finally created a world where no one felt at home, No one felt they measured up, And all of us were desperately looking for love, Normally in all the wrong places. Somewhere along the way, During this collection of experiences called “life," We forgot how to love each other, And so, in turn, forgot how to love ourselves. I don’t know how to fix what it feels like we broke, But it probably starts with us, Each of us, individually, Accepting one another for who we are, And then, in turn, accepting ourselves. It probably begins with loving others without constrains or expectations, And therefore loving ourselves the same way. It probably starts with extending words of kindness to those around us, And so then also speaking those kind words to ourselves. It probably starts small, with a hopeful outlook towards a brighter tomorrow, And then working every day towards that goal. I’m not sure if we will ever fix what we broke, Here on earth, where we have been pushing boundaries until they snapped Since the moment we arrived, But maybe, if we focus on just that, How it took all of us, All of us brilliantly unique individuals, All of us hurting, broken, lovely humans, All of us to destroy what we were given, Then maybe, just maybe, We can rebuild something beautiful together. For beauty comes, not from the absence of brokenness, But from the light that is able to shine through, When we put our broken pieces together again.
A day at the zoo
It was easy for me to slip into the routine of living my life at home. My parents had never been very adventurous. In all of my childhood, I can probably count on two hands the amount of times I saw their friends, and on one hand the amount of times they actually left the house to go out with someone. I normally found them on their own at home, doing something quiet that brought them pleasure. My brother was a tad more adventurous, but even he found enjoyment in locking himself in his room for days to play video games.
I grew up more extroverted, but when chronic illness hit, I began to spend more time at home. Many of my young friends could not understand what it meant to be unable to go out, even though I looked fine. My symptoms were not visible. It became easier to entertain myself at home rather than deal with the judgment and expectations of others. But I missed going out. I missed seeing the world. There is an entire year that I don’t remember the seasons ever changing because I never took a step out of my house. I regret that year of my life most.
One summer evening, while looking online for something to do to take away the boredom, I came across an interesting national holiday: July 1 is American Zoo Day. I looked to my mother, who was absorbed in her own laptop, and asked her if we could go to the zoo that week.
Her face clouded with confusion. She looked up at me, her eyebrows knit.
“Why do you want to go to the zoo,” she asked. I shrugged.
“I just thought it would be fun.” She watched me for a moment longer, and then she looked back down at her laptop.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Okay?” I could not believe she had agreed.
“Yes, okay.”
It may sound weird for a nineteen-year-old girl to be so excited about visiting the zoo, but I was more thrilled about this than I had been about graduating high school the year before, when so many thought I would have dropped out. I eagerly began searching online to find the nearest zoo and to plan the event. That week, my mother and I made chicken salad and packed snacks to bring, and early on a Wednesday morning, we left for a day in Washington, D.C. with my friends, Erin and Kristina.
There is something odd about being the most excited person on a trip. While my mother and Erin obliged me and let me lead the way as I skipped down the cobblestone streets of the zoo, Kristina could only look upon me with distaste. I admit, I must have looked childish. My eyes were filled with wonder as I gazed down into the pit where the lions roared at one another. I laughed as I watched the strange squirrel-like creatures tussle. And I cowered in fear when my mother dragged me into the monkey house to see the animals she found most interesting, which happen to be animals that most terrify me. Meanwhile, Kristina sat at the edge of the room, her face engrossed in her cell phone, probably complaining about the lame trip she had been forced to go on.
But when we entered the elephant house, I forgot all about my less-than-enthusiastic companions. Face-to-face with an Asian elephant, her large amber eyes staring into mine, all the other voices around me fell silent. In that moment, I felt more seen than I had in years.
I had all but wasted away; my body had grown so thin from disease I was surprised I had not completely disappeared. Friends had forgotten to call for my birthday, and then forgotten to call at all. I had slunk away from the world, holed into myself, trapped myself in a house because it felt warm and protected me from the rest of the world. But this lonely elephant saw me when no one else had, and in that moment, I saw what it truly meant to be caged from the rest of the world.
I have read that elephant mothers are one of the few that stay with their children, in particular, their daughters. While the sons grow up and leave, their daughters join the herd and stay with their mothers for life. It is said the bond between these females is one of the strongest in the animal kingdom. In my life, I have only felt love this strong from one person. I looked back at my companions and found two of them engrossed in their own lives. My mother, however, was gazing at me with pure joy. I knew then why she had agreed to this trip when she normally would never venture beyond the confines of our local county, much less would brave the stressful, crowded streets of Washington, D.C. My mother loved me with a fierceness that I could never match nor comprehend, and the only way to repay this was to live my life in a way that would make her proud – to never take another day for granted, to never let myself miss out on life, and to never let another day pass in which I felt unloved or invisible.