LIKE A WILDFLOWER ON THE WAYSIDE

HER lips were bruised and hurting, yet she hummed, softly, songs that spoke of dreams and faith, of a love that comes from deep within. Her hands worked deftly preparing tasty delicacies for her food stall, a small business she had inherited from her grandmother. It became her only livelihood, a girl whose dreams had gotten lost in the broken pieces of her life.

“Why did this had to happen to me?” she had often asked herself as she grew from a little girl to a young woman. A bitter separation between her mother and father had changed everything in Tanya’s life and she had watched tearful, her little heartbreaking as the two people she loved the most in the world went their separate ways.

“What happened to the love they shared?” she had asked herself, “What is happening now to me?”

She missed her dad, but life went on for her and her mother, who struggled to pick up the pieces. Her father was not visiting too often.

She soon got a new job in a beauty salon and things had begun to improve in their lives until she brought home her new boyfriend. That was another blow in the child’s life for things changed not for the better and soon she was sent to live with her grandmother for a while.

In the nights, she had cried silently, awakening each morning with the hope that her mother would return for her and say, “Let’s go home, baby.”

But though she visited, she never said those words and whenever Tanya asked, her answer always was “I need a little time more.”

Weeks passed into months and when months became a couple of years Tanya stopped asking her. She had to change school and church, living with her grandmother in a small country house. She helped her with preparing the street food she sold on food court tarmacs, learning along the way.

She had managed to adjust her life but her heart still grieved, for she felt she was left on the wayside to bloom like a wild flower.

A beautiful young woman she had become, simple with a pleasant countenance and always a warm smile. She kept God close to her heart and continued to live with hopes that one day in her life she could find a blessed happiness that could make her smile radiantly.

“Yuh ah read too much ah dem love story book,” Aunt Theresa, a food vendor near to her had teased her.

“Yeah,” Tanya had sighed, “I guess I feel safe living in a dream world.”

“Well, you gotta wake up sometime,” Aunt Theresa reiterated, “Da boy in Block C like yuh and he gat ah nice car.”

“I know,” Tanya had responded with a patient smile, “But he has many girlfriends and has been detained several times by the police.”

“Girl, it was just suspicion,” the old lady retorted, “Yuh cyan worry about dem things.”