The Amazing Tina

 

   With much confidence, I bounced on the twin size bed, with my arms folded, in front of me. A week before, I had turned 5 years old and I was sure that I could do anything.

    "Are you ready?" I asked the stuffed animal audience in front row seats on the floor.

    "The  Amazing Tina will do her double stunt again!"

    The stuffed animals looked on with blank expressions on their furry faces. When I was about to get in the position of the amazing kart wheel. A voice from outside of the open bedroom door yelled, "Tina, this is your last warning! I am not telling you again!"

   "Oh, mommy doesn't let me do anything!" I plopped on the bed. I folded my arms on my chest as I hummed to myself. This activity did not last long. Ten minutes later, with more confidence I stood up, getting ready to do a better stunt. I was positive that the double back flip wonder would wow my furry audience.

   "Umph." I rolled my eyes and turned my back on the opened bedroom door. With my arms raised up to the ceiling , I bent my body backward towards the door. Something was wrong. My feet were at the edge of the bed and I was loosing my balance. With all my might, I tried to stand up but I fell on my back on the wooden floor. Although, I caught myself on my elbows, I noticed that there was a knife stabbing pain in my body but I could not identify where it was coming from. I turned my head around and looked at my propped elbow in the mirror next to the door. Blood was flowing out of it like melted butter in a sliced baked potato.

  "Mommy! Mommy!" I cried. "What's wrong baby?" My mother asked as she frantically ran into the bedroom. "Look!" I exclaimed, indicating to the elbow.

  Without a word, my mother scooped me up off the floor and took me to the hospital. That day was the last of the Amazing Tina...well for a few days at least.
 

Sleeping through the Storms

   Summers in Huntsville, Alabama brought danger. Before the days became night, the sky cleared itself from nature's burden. In those days, familiar moving black dots were not covering the beginning and the end of the sky. Only the roaring of airplanes and the cackling of the helicopters were seen and heard during the mornings and afternoons. During those days there was heat. The type of heat that made Mama realized that she must turn the thermostat all the way down. There was no wind. No whistle in the air. Even the trees' limbs were still.

   Although, I was four years old, I knew what all of these revelational signs meant. I could not manage to say tornado, but I knew it was coming.

   At nights, the stars could not be seen. They were hiding, hiding behind the black sky. In those nights, my father, my mother, and I crammed up in the guest bathroom. I sat inside the bathtub, while my father sat on the floor, with a flashlight in his right hand and the portable white radio in his left hand. As his eyebrows made frowns on his forehead, he would calmly suck his teeth. Mama sat on top of the cushioned closed lid of the toilet. She held a green book that was composed of bible stories.

  That green book calmed all fears. As soon as my mother opened the book and read the beginning sentences to me; all was forgotten. The growling of the earth could not be heard. The hard floor of the tub did not hurt my body. Instead, my eyes seemed to be heavy and soon they would close, leading me to a safer world.  
   Image by Google.

There She Lay

 

My grandmother lay,
dressed in pink,
in the white coffin.

I watched from the pew.
I watched the people,
people she helped:
poor, middle class, and rich.

She
gave furniture,
money, clothes,
and most valuable her time.

In the first pew my mother and her sisters,
wailed and cried.
In the second pew,
the elderly women, dressed in black,
waved their hands,
which were covered with white wrist gloves,
as if they were royalty,
saying farewell to a fellow queen.

Mix scents of White Diamonds and Happy jumped in the air,
danced around my nose,
calmed the church with peace.

Preacher preached,
waving a worn black bible,
with his left hand.
"She is surely is in heaven looking down on us."

Like a llulliby,
the elderly women said in unison, "Amen."

The elderly men hummed as the preacher said,
"All what she done for others, is return to her right now,
in heaven."
"Amen."
All nodded. All agreed.

There she lay.