Fleur de Aleta

The River I stand in the middle of a river of love. Behind me, my parents stand on distant banks, their hands still wet from carrying me through fevers and failures, through scraped knees and broken hearts, through all the years I believed I was walking alone. Beside me, my son walks toward his own horizon, one foot still in childhood, the other reaching for a future I cannot yet see. And I understand now what I could not understand then: Love is not a possession. It is a current. It flows from hand to hand, from generation to generation, gathering stories as it moves. A mother watches a child on a stage. A grandmother watches the mother. A child grows and someday becomes the one watching. The river keeps moving. Names change. Faces change. The songs are different. But the current remains. I stand in the middle of it today, held by those who came before, holding those who come after, and for one brief, beautiful moment, I can feel the whole river

Lost and Found - Epilogue Six months later, she went through most of Anna’s belongings in her bedroom and shifted the space into her writing room.  The modern writing desk was delivered  It had clean lines, minimalist silhouette and functional simplicity.  It faced the window, so she could see nature outside.  She aimed for an uncluttered space to foster her creativity.  “Anna would love it.”   On one wall she hung cloud paintings that her sister created.  There was a cloud whale and giraffe.  There was another cloud labeled “Grandma’s attitude.”  She forgot about the animals in the sky until she reread her notebook.  She laughed when she saw the paintings and pinned them to the wall.  A few days ago, an orange cat was outside, chasing a squirrel.  She took a picture of it, printed it, wrote “George” under it and pinned it next to the paintings.  Memories slowly returned.  Therapy helped with this.     She s...

 Lost and Found - Chapters 7 through 9 Chapter 7   The next morning it was difficult to want to get out of bed.  The last note from Ellie hit a tender nerve.  She didn’t feel that way towards her mom, but she understood regret, to feel robbed of time that you needed to clear the air.. maybe reading a note would help her sluggish mood.   She reached over.  She passed up Ellie’s handwritten notes.  She felt the need to read something different.   “I took a sabbatical.  The Principal wasn’t happy that I did it in the middle of the school year.  Sometimes we get a good crop of students and then there are years that you think teaching is a form of cruel punishment.  This is one of those years.  I made the simple mistake of pronouncing “hour” like “our.”  The kids howled with laughter, like it was the best thing in the word to catch a teacher make a mistake.  I’m human too.  Were kids always this mean or is this a gene...

 Lost and Found - Chapters 11-13 Chapter 10   She woke up, wanting to stay under the blanket, but she forced herself to put her feet to the floor.  With her notebook in her hand, she walked over to the desk.  She had figured out the pattern, “If I write in my notebook, I don’t find any notes.”  She looked sadly at her notebook, like a long lost friend, “I’m sorry.  I’ve neglected you.  I promise to write more later.”  She placed the notebook aside. And inside the desk, waiting as always was the paper and pen and a question, “What is your last memory of Anna?”  A wave of unease crept over her as she processed the question.  Her mother always told her that the more someone pushed her, the harder she fought back and that’s how she felt now...but she still wanted to write.  She thought for a moment and remembered something she wrote in the notebook:   “Anna was convinced clouds were animals.  Not shapes.  Not “look, that ...