The song of her Father

We are just days away from boarding that morning flight we watch longingly from our breakfast table each day. The plane that hurtles above our front door is on its way to Port Moresby at 7:20am where there are other planes waiting to take passengers to wonderful places. Places like Cairns. As we watch that […]

A softening

My eyes jerked open when the truck slammed into another pothole. At some point in the trip the hot sun, bumpy road, and silent passengers had worked their magic and I was close to sleep. Ray and Willa were strapped in their seats, quiet with the same drowsiness that almost took me. We were heading […]

Fiery stars

Willa isn’t scared of much. Things happen to her, around her, near her, because of her, and she doesn’t blink an eye. More often than not in our house, we find the younger comforting the older. We only knew this Willa until the fireworks started earlier in the month. The first illegal explosions rumbling through […]

The blurriness of needs and wants

On the very farthest outreach of my memory, from the time life began rolling itself into events that stuck in my head, I remember episodes of pain enveloping my legs. All encompassing, it pushes everything out of my mind. When it happens, it’s the only thing to feel. Sometimes during the worst episodes, I spend […]

Unwelcome alarm

Years ago I found myself at the edge of the world, waking up sore, tired, and very dirty. The bamboo under my back had not been kind to me throughout the night, and I was ready to finish our work in the sticky jungle in order to get back home to a shower. As my […]