and this is how she slays me

Mommy, you are the best mommy in the whole world. When you are happy I am happy too. I love you every day. And daddy too. And then she hurtles her little self at me and hugs me with all her might.

Now that's good, baby girl. Really, really good. And ooof goes my heart.

flower power

I noticed a couple of the women carrying them, these small somewhat wilted bouquets of flowers wrapped in plastic. The cheap kind, some fern, carnations, perhaps a daisy, that white stuff, some odds and ends. So after seeing three or four women walking by, one or two smelling their flowers but all of them carrying them proudly I noticed a man with a bucket walking towards me.

Want some flowers? All ladies deserve flowers.

So after politely declining in deference to others I asked him where he got them. He told me that he saw a man was throwing them away as he was on his way back to the shelter, day old flowers from a convenience store. The man said he could have the lot of them and so he carried them back to the shelter to pass them around.

And as I walked through the floor past the bunk beds and grey mattresses, bundles of old clothing, standard issue blankets and bulging plastic bags there they were, scattered on beds like little rainbows glowing under relentless florescent lights proving us hopeful against the tide.

We will not surrender, those flowers said. We matter, they declared. We are beautiful, they cried.

And for a small moment all was right in the world.