Orange

I don’t know what to say.

You were my Mothers best friend. You were family to us.

I have a tattoo on my ankle that I got in your honor. A wave. I know how much you loved the ocean.

There is a story that I’ve heard; that people who jump off bridges and live to talk about it describe the first half of the fall as peaceful, but once they reach the halfway point they are immediately filled with regret.

Is that what you felt? Is that why you fell out of the hammock and your body was found on the floor? Did you reach a point of regret after taking all of those pills? While trying to get away from your mistakes you fell and it was too late.



I was finally able to see photos of you when you were a teenager at the funeral. Before then you kept them hidden away, ashamed of what you looked like before the surgery. The surgery that ultimately killed you.

You looked happy then. You were healthy.

My Mom said that you probably wouldn’t have liked that they used a photo of you before your weight reduction procedure as your obituary photo. But the ones of you in hospital gowns, arms as thin as a skeleton’s, they weren’t you.



You loved Disneyland. You would try to go almost every year. You took me there on my seventh birthday.

I don’t remember much of Disneyland itself, but I remember our hotel room. I remember you and your daughter getting ready for the day with my Mom and I.

I remember ordering plain spaghetti at Bubba Gump Shrimp.

You teased me for that. But the way you teased was different to others. It was like you could tell which buttons would hurt to press and which ones didn’t. You never pushed the ones that hurt me. Now I know it was because you never wanted to hurt someone the way you were hurt as a child.

Walking back to our hotel after supper, you picked an orange out of a tree like it was the most natural thing in the world. I don’t know why but I was struck by this image.

The peel was thick and difficult to pull from the flesh within. But you shared what little you could with us anyways.

Thank you for always sharing with us. Even during the times when my Mom and I had little to share in return.