In my office looking at the computer screen, I saw her name on the schedule for clinic that day and wondered how she was doing since the last time I saw her when I could hear the crackling sounds of fluid beginning to collect in her left lung. It was the second time I had seen her and my words still sounded like a stranger’s advice.
almost gone again
It was the summer of my 9th year when I was almost gone again. Days were spent running barefoot with my younger cousins, Tonya and Tara, in the field between my home and theirs. Kinky hair running wild or in slept on, half-undone plaits scattered over our heads because everyone over age 16 was too busy to comb it.