Intro

As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.

Prov. A grown person will act the way he or she was taught to act as a child

Tree is known by its fruit.

Prov. People judge your character by what you do.

The apple never falls far from the tree.

Prov. Family characteristics are usually inherited.

Wake up, she heard. Wake up, listen: Wake up, grow. When you get above the canopy, say hi to the sun. Say hi to the light. Let it take you: absorb it.

My mother accepted it. The voice she heard told her to go as fast as possible and don’t stop. It said, “keep climbing, reach further, get higher away from the ground”--never keep your feet on the ground.

At a Christmas party in 1989, my mother reached the clouds. She started to glow. Her climbing started to get labored; her lower back cramped, her legs shook and so she stopped on a branch: my grandfathers. But this particular branch has aged. Years of weather and the seasons of bearing fruit of it’s own caused it to bow. The pressure of my mother and the bulge of her belly put weight on the remainder of the tree. But a tree is known by it’s fruit, and our fruit is strong. Our fruit grows. Our fruit grows and endures. His branch lifted her weight higher, until it was taught enough to strum, so very tought, it snapped.

My mother came falling down, catching herself at the last possible moment, but the damage was done.

Her brown hair she meant to give to me grew blood red in the womb, seeping in from bruising around her belly. The eyes she meant to be mine with which to see the world as she had seen it, instead became green. Two bright green jades, treasures to anyone who looked over my mother’s arm to see my face, pregnant with envy I couldn't feel yet. My birth meant her trial had arrived.