Sing when you feel lonely
Dance when your heart is blue
Wander into the garden
Find yourself anew
Let curiosity guide you
Under a magical sky
Ride horses to castles
Hidden among clouds
Follow the beckoning ferns
Into the treasure hunt
Seek and find the lady bugs
Bright, red polka dots of joy
As a child one of my favorite pastimes was to hunt for lady bugs among the plants and flowers in the garden. I would crouch down, wait and scan between the greenery for a tiny spec of red, for the subtlest movement, for a sign of life. The shooting in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016 taints life-embracing crimson-rich stories, replaces their images with the death and mayhem of a gunman walking among the living in search for the subtlest sign of life to blow it out.
I will not let this gunman become the new bogeyman of my psyche. I will seek polka-dotted lady bugs, buy red carnations, stop to smell the crimson roses in my garden, plant scarlet lipstick kisses on my children’s cheeks and bite into the decadent tartness of a bowl of cherries. I will not be lost in Wonderland. I will find my way home. And, I pray that we each do, too.
Elizabeth Zertuche 