609. for adam #23 and melba and her family

new ferns - rising up 
stretching way out into space
so slowly… in time 🦊❤️  
•••
ferns… so tightly wound
like clenched fists… wailing - waiting
softened by the son  🦊❤️
•••
i will be a fern
i will stand out in the sun
my fronds will unfurl  🦊❤️

Yesterday I was sitting alone at a local farmer’s market sipping an iced coffee. It was sunny so every outdoor seat  was taken except for a bench in the midst of a family of four (woman and her husband plus their adult son and his wife). As I sat trying to be invisible, the woman whose name was Melba (she had a beautiful tattooed dragonfly on her forearm) asked  me, “What brings you here this beautiful day?” I told her I was waiting for a friend for dinner. She told me that they were there to be together to remember her son Adam,  who had passed on from a car accident 27 years ago on this day. I told her I loved her tattoo. She said it was for her departed son. It had the inscription, “still I rise”.  We all had a pleasant conversation for awhile until it was time for them to go. As the family walked away, Melba stayed and we talked. She showed me another tattoo that she had on her shoulder. It was the number “23” rising up on wings. It was her son’s basketball number. Melba and I talked, and we cried for awhile. We exchanged phone numbers because we both agreed that there are no such things as coincidences. Today is the 23rd of  April, just like Melba’s tattoo. This post is for Melba and her family and her son Adam,  until they all meet again. When they “rise up”. 🦊❤️