A place to share my writing with you, the readers.
Wrought-iron sentinels
stand side by side,
connected throughout
but for a yawning divide.
Ancient oaks flourish,
their roots grown through cleaves.
The electric rails’ current
moves ‘neath a quilt of leaves.
The archaic and modern
with one another stand
on this soggy crescent-
a sacred and debauched land.
A fresh sapling,
young and new,
grows among its ancestral kin.
Their roots join to form
an ancient web of communication,
sharing nutrients through
their communal networks.
Symbiotic relationships,
tree root and fungi combine.
A complex grid exists
beneath the forest floor.
The sapling rises to the light.
Its branches extend toward
the sun’s illumination.
It will struggle to survive
in the dense woods
among its ancestral kin.
The sapling will adapt,
as living things tend to do.
Perhaps it will outlive the rest.
The Baobab Tree
She pressed her palms against the ancient oak.
Spanish moss hung down
grey and curly, like the hair of an elder woman she once knew.
Rivulets of blood stained the bark,
hundreds of stains mingled,
the essences of a hundred men and women.
She remembered the baobab tree in her village,
the one where the children prayed.
The community matriarch told tales of ghouls,
white, snatching their people up,
violating their women and girls.
Their men were roped like the beasts
that stalked the edges of their village in the night.
The baobab tree witnessed it all-
the ghouls with their explosive weapons shouting.
The ancient oak wept blood.
The baobab wept, too.
RB had a fever yesterday and we had to return to the ER at CHNOLA. Everything seems fine, but he’s being treated with antibiotics for safety reasons since some bacteria came back in his tracheostomy. It’s a bacteria he’s been colonized with and will always be there. His oncology team advised us that next time he has a fever, we won’t have to come to the ER. He can be treated for an illness by his regular pediatrician as he is no longer a cancer patient. After his next scan (which is this month) they are going to schedule a surgery to remove his port. All of his counts are normal and he is completely recovered from the chemo and radiation.
Although he has a lot of physical disabilities still (many of which he is overcoming slowly, and with therapy;some from which he will never recover). Things are by no…
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I wanted to make my first ever vlog, however, I couldn’t get my video to upload to YouTube or Dropbox-or anyplace! Soooo…. I went with Plan B, take still shots of the video and create a photo blog!
Last week, I was contacted by an acquaintance who was interested in shaving his head for September to raise awareness for Pediatric Cancer, and he wanted RB and me to be involved. We decided I’d do his shave (I’m not shaving my own head again until the next St. Baldrick’s Event, so I’m letting my hair grow back right now), and he chose Sunday September 1st, since it was the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness month.
Our friend, Travis, was the shavee. Travis is a firefighter who decided to help raise awareness for childhood cancer. He’s also a graduate student at Nicholl’s State University studying marine and environmental biology. All of his research is in microbiology, and he hopes to get onto a pediatric oncology research team after graduation.
On Sunday, Travis came to our home so that I could video the shave so that we could share it. Unfortunately, like I’ve already written, the tech gods were not smiling down on me. Instead of being able to share the video, I can still share still shots of the video, though!
I’m an expert shaver, by the way. I’ve been shaving Robot Dad’s head for about 13 years now. And I shaved my own a few times after I initially shaved it last March, too.
Not only did Travis decide to shave his head for Childhood Cancer Awareness, he also spent Sunday chalking the back windshields of cars with messages to help spread the word about pediatric cancer.
He even did Robot Boy’s van before he left so that we can spread the message whenever we’re on the road, too.
In my video, I thanked Travis and everyone who goes out of their way to spread awareness for pediatric cancer. Those of us in the pediatric cancer community try to make childhood cancer known to more people throughout the year, but especially during September because it is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We are thankful to everyone who shares the message, as well.
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