Written for Muse on Monday where David asks us
to write a story about our MC having an epiphany
at the beginning. Also written for Fandango’s Story
Starter #217 where the opening sentence is provided.
This is where the prompts and my imagination took me.
Tag: Daughter
Invisible
Written for dVerse Poets – Don’t Shoot The Messenger;
or Tolstoy’s Birthday. Our host Melissa from Mom With A Blog
invites us to choose one of the quotes from a work by
Leo Tolstoy that resonates with us and write a poem
about the time(s) our actions aligned with the chosen quote.
This is the Tolstoy quote I used with my poem following.
The Dreamers
Our gracious host, Rochelle, at Friday Fictioneers
asks us to use the photo below as inspiration
to write creatively in 100 words or less while
making every word count. This is my flash.
For The Right Price
Written for OLWG #397.
Our three prompts appear below.
This is my flash.
A Daughter’s Memory
The idea of Father’s Day was first conceived by Sonora Smart Dodd, a loving daughter from Spokane, Washington. It was also inspired by Mother’s Day as Dodd wanted a day to honor her father as well. William Jackson Smart was a Civil War veteran and single-handedly raised Sonora and her siblings after the death of their mother.
My dad was a Sicilian immigrant who came to the US by boat in 1930 at the age of 15. He arrived with his father and two brothers … one older and the other younger. His mother and sister remained in Sicily for another few years; according to my grandfather, “America is no place for a woman”.
None of them spoke a word of English.
My father was an apprentice shoemaker in Sicily who took up barbering after getting settled in Brooklyn, NY. His good looks and charm endeared him to many people and he was liked by everyone.
It was my dad’s boss at the barbershop who gave him a brilliant piece of advice. As was his habit, my father bought the Italian newspaper every day to read during his down time at work. One day the boss said to him in Italian “Hey, Vito! If you ever hope to speak English, do yourself a favor and start buying the New York Times every day and read it from front to back.” My father realized the importance of that advice and started buying the NY Times the very next day. With the added help of his English-speaking customers, he became fluent in English and lost his accent with no formal schooling. One of the proudest moments in his life was completing the NY Times crossword puzzle … in ink!
Dad became a US citizen and eventually landed a job with the post office. He was a US Army veteran who drove a jeep throughout Europe during WWII without ever having earned a driver’s license. He never did get his license and never drove again after his stint in the army.
My father loved music, especially opera, and I was exposed to classical music and opera at a very early age. The basics in life were Dad’s tenets … family, God, country, his job, providing a roof over our heads, food on the table and a good education. He was also the fun-loving one, with Mom always busy “cleaning up his messes”.
Dad loved people and entertaining in our home. He would often invite people for dinner without clearing it with Mom first. No wonder she was always pissed off! Dad was often in trouble for that and I found that devilish quality one of his most endearing traits. He truly meant no harm. He was a good and decent man who loved and was loved in return. And in the end can any of us want more than that?
Happy Father’s Day to all my guys on WordPress. I hope your day is as special as you are.
NAR©2024
This is “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh my dear daddy”) performed by Renée Fleming
All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.
THE IVY GARDEN
From our kitchen window I can see my little girl Nell playing with her new best friend Elena. Since moving to Atlanta two months ago, the girls have become inseparable. They are both four years old and about the same height but that’s where the physical similarities end.
Nell is a green-eyed lanky Irish redhead covered in a profusion of freckles while Elena is a slightly plump Spanish beauty with brown doe eyes, smooth tanned skin and lustrous black hair.
As I stand at the kitchen sink I can see the girls frolicking in the yard with Elena’s puppy, Pongo. Their energy is boundless as they dash back and forth from the swings to the trampoline to their bikes. They like to play a funny game where little Pongo is a scary monster chasing them around the yard …. and Pongo is always happy to oblige.
Moving around the kitchen doing my chores, I can hear Elena counting, followed by an excited “ready or not….here I come”, then the hysterical giggles as Nell’s secret (but usual!) hiding place is discovered.
The yard is fenced in and I’m completely aware of the girls and what they’re doing …. most of the time. Occasionally they’ll wander into a concealed corner of the garden to pick wild flowers for me and Elena’s mom. Even though I can’t see them, I can clearly hear their conspiratorial mumblings as they go from one blossom to the other.
“Buttercups, Daisies and Lillies of the Valley” whispered Elena.
“And some pretty shiny ivy” added Nell. “Mommy likes shiny things.”
All was quiet and I presumed the girls would come dashing into the kitchen and present me with a freshly-picked bouquet; instead Pongo bounded in, yipping and yapping like crazy …. an omen that all is not as it should be. To my relief, there’s no sign of anything unusual in the dining room. The front door is locked and my handbag is still resting on the desk where I left it. To my amazement, on the crisp white tablecloth sat a short blue glass vase brimming with Daisies, Buttercups, Lillies of the Valley and ivy. It was breathtaking.
I stood there admiring the green, white and golden cluster when suddenly I heard woeful whimpering and sobbing nearby. Pongo gave a little tug on the end of the tablecloth and there, huddled closely, were Nell and Elena, their little bodies covered in itchy red rashes. Only then did I realize the vine in the vase with flowers was poison ivy!
“Come with me, my sweet girls. It’s nothing a little calamine lotion won’t fix. Thank you for the flowers …. the most beautiful I’ve ever seen! Won’t daddy be surprised when he comes home tonight!” I said, smiling and chuckling to myself.
And tomorrow we will rid the garden of all the pretty shiny ivy.
NAR©2024
This is Spanky and Our Gang with “Lazy Day”
This portfolio (including text, graphics and videos) is copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and is not for use by anyone without permission. NAR © 2017-present.
PILLOW TALK
It’s Six Sentence Story time with Denise at GirlieOnTheEdge. Yeah, it is.
“Other” is a word that rhymes with mother, which also happens to rhyme with smother, which begs the question: “Am I a dreadful person for wanting to smother my mother ?”
Mother wasn’t a bad person; there was no physical abuse – just a major lack of tenderness which can leave greater, more permanent scars …. a perfectionist who found it very difficult to show warmth or affection, even to her children; I don’t remember her saying “I love you”, tickling me till I squealed or reading bedtime stories; what I do remember is proudly showing her a drawing I made in school with the inscription “Skyscrapers scrape the sky while butterflies flutter by”…. something my teacher called “highly imaginative and showing great vision” but mother said it was foolishness because butterflies can’t fly that high.
As a teenager I was forbidden to shave my legs but did anyway and not wanting my secret revealed, I wore jeans all the time, even to the beach in the middle of summer which also covered-up the fact that I used a self-tanner which turned my skin orange; mother watched as I scrubbed myself raw in the tub using a mixture of water and bleach – a humiliating experience – but it was at that time she discovered my shaved legs, causing her to explode like a slow gas leak and, of course, I was grounded but it was worth it.
Many days after arriving home from school I would find the contents of my dresser drawers dumped on my bed, simply because mother didn’t approve of how my clothes were folded; if I wanted to sleep that night, I’d have to put all my things away (or push them to the floor, which I often did) and I’d get hell the next day but it was a trip seeing her bulging veins and bugged-out eyes.
Years later when I had kids, mother would pop in unannounced and examine my house like the “White-Glove Lady” checking for dust; if my oven didn’t meet her standards, she would clean it (which, now that I have 20/20 hindsight, was a blessing in disguise because I ended up with a clean oven) and then she would depart as quickly as she arrived, leaving me with a spotless house but never once sitting down for coffee and a piece of pie or stopping to play with my children.
Lately I’ve been having a recurring dream about smothering mother with a pillow and when I wake up, I’m smiling; I guess my earlier question bears repeating: “Does that make me a dreadful person?”
NAR © 2023
This is John Lennon & Yoko Ono with The Plastic Ono Band singing “Mother”:
FAMILIAR STRANGERS
Invisible. That’s the first word I thought of when I saw my mother glance over at me. Her eyes were blank, her expression impassive. I was just a face in a crowd; I might as well have been invisible.
She sat in the middle of the music room of the nursing home, fellow residents all around her as they sang old standards from the 1940’s, members of the blissfully unaware chorus. Noticing an empty chair, I sat down beside my mother and began to sing along to those beloved ancestral tunes carved in her now addled brain. My mother turned to look at me, totally unaware of who I was. She smiled and I smiled back, feeling a pang of guilt for I was simply there doing my duty, fulfilling an obligation … just as she had done all her life.
In the 58 years since my birth, we were never close … just one of those sadly unfulfilled relationships between mother and daughter. If she ever loved me, she didn’t show it. And I did not love her. Yet here I was. Why? Was I driven by misplaced guilt … compelled to visit … seeking approval?
So we sat side by side singing Sentimental Journey and when the song was over my mother turned to me and said “You have a lovely voice. Would you like to see my room?” and I surprised myself by cheerfully answering “Yes!”
Prior to moving into the facility, mother lived in a small house next to my sister. If nothing else, it was convenient. I lived far enough away to avoid any interaction but my sister was burdened for quite a few years caring for our mother – a regiment of one following orders. She tended to her until it became unbearable. Sis decorated our mother’s room in the nursing home with many of her personal effects and furnishings and I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole when I entered her room. I remembered her curtains and matching bedspread, the mirrored perfume tray on her dresser, her tortoise shell hairbrush and comb set and numerous photographs in gilded frames. I looked around as if seeing everything for the first time. Perhaps there was more truth in that than I realized.
“Come, I want to show you something” my mother beckoned, and she led me to a wall on which hung two identical color portraits – high school graduation paintings of my sister and me. Mother pointed to my portrait and said “That’s my beautiful daughter, Nancy”. Then she pointed to my sister’s portrait and said “I have no idea who that is”, and she walked away unfazed.
Why did she recognize my portrait – the prodigal daughter who stood right beside her? How could she not remember my sister? Those questions remain unanswered. My mother passed away shortly after our visit.
Now that I’m older and infinitely wiser, I believe my mother truly tried her best. And in the end isn’t that all we can ask of anyone?
NAR © 2019
The Elephant's Trunk 