The fluorescent lights ever so blinding fills the room. Nocturnal nurses chattering amongst themselves, gossiping quietly, with amused expressions on their face. All of them in their drone-like manner scurrying around the room, folding towels, making beds, mopping the floor. Their chattering consists of hushed whispers and rowdy giggling with raised eyebrows at the new work gossip.
One of the exclaims, “Are you serious? She actually said that no wonder she got a warning from the boss!”
The undisturbed delivery room in the drab corner of the hustling hospital has a man, tall, nervous, waiting anxiously with his exhausted wife in utter awe. He holds her hand to give the most support he possibly could with his limited abilities. She is overwhelmed, her heart screaming, crying, celebrating, worrying. She closes her tired brown eyes, falling into a much needed and deserved soundless sleep.
“Look! Abuelito, I am playing!” The little girl shouts booming through the halls in a house of mess. The toys occupying every square inch of the carpet, in every direction possible there are Legos, play-doh, dolls, stuffies. Her mischievous smile brightens her plump face, watching the new episode of Dora the Explorer. The elderly man, glances up from his crossword, his laugh filling the room, smiling blissfully.
“Didn’t I tell you only one cookie mija? What will your parents think?” He questions and gently takes the bag of cookies from the rowdy toddler.
Her sparkling eye turns into a frown, “Hmmm that’s not fair.” She is about to give out one of her infamous terrible threes tantrums, but her wise grandfather knows better.
He has had four kids of his own. The slight laugh lines on both his cheeks serve as reminders to him, of the years smiling after his eldest got into university, his boy learned to swim, his other boy finally learned to drive, and his youngest girl got a once in a lifetime job offer in a foreign country. He thanks them for the loving memories he gets from them.
He smiles now, “What about I give you a cookie after you eat breakfast, but don’t tell your mother.” The little girl gives a flashing smile, and a triumphant giggle, just before the loud home phone ringtone blasts from down the stairs.
The car ride is peaceful, to say the least. The girl sleeps, giving a soft snore still with cookie crumbs on her lip from earlier. The grandfather excited tapping his foot in anticipation, more than ready to finally meet him. The father is also excited, especially for her to meet him, he looks in the rearview mirror back at her. Back at the road he notices the clouds blocking the sun, the blue and grey skies calm him, he sighs.
The mother holds her baby gingerly, giving it a kiss of love and warmth on the temple of its forehead. The morning sunlight dances through the blinds gently onto the babies rosy cheek, it tenderly kisses him the gift of life. The infant squirms in her arms stretching its legs. The warm buzz of the heater softly vibrates in the delivery room. The angelic lighting is perfect a hint of glowing and loving that it seems no other place in the world could possibly have. She loves her baby with no limit, no question, just pure calm that settles in her heart, unquestionably she is holding a breathtaking creature, a baby. She wishes she could stay in this moment for eternity with her sweet child, no issues, no problems, not a hint of worry, not any life issues.
The mahogany door across her opens abruptly to reveal the chubby girl with a huge pink bow on the top of her chestnut hair. Although the girl is hysterically eager to see her mom she limits her boundless excitement to only a whisper squeal, “Mama!”
“Hey, honey,” her mother smiles. She gives the baby to the dad and reaches towards her daughter for a warm embrace.
“Why does that baby’s face look so red?” the girl questions with a single eyebrow raised eyeing the child, suspiciously.
“All newborns look like that,” her father chuckles, looking at his son.
“He’s cute I guess, ok I am hungry” She grabs an orange from her Abuelo’s bag, her father puts down the baby and takes out a camera, pointing it at her.
“Get closer to the baby,” he instructs.
She smiles slyly at the canyon camera holding an orange slice in her hand. Right before the snap of the picture she says, “Mommy feels sick and the baby is visiting her.”
The adults begin to roar with laughter, which wakes the peaceful child, crying in his newborn way, the mother’s maternal instinct picks him up.
“Shhhhh,” she calms him while rocking the fussy boy in her arms.
“Sweetie, mommy is not sick, and the baby is not visiting her…”
“Yeah she is, why else would mommy be in the hospital,” she challenges her dad, interrupting.
“Don’t interrupt, that’s not nice, and I am not sick and the baby is not visiting he is your baby brother.” the mother tells her beyond confused daughter.
“Wait what?!” she exclaims, shocked.
Little did the little girl know that the sentence her mother had uttered to her that day in a hospital with a whirl of wind escaping into the room, with all the working nurses outside their room to occupied for anything, with the orange in her hand, little could she understand how this had changed her life.
Days of yelling with unexplainable rage pouring out of her, yelling aimlessly at him for stealing the computer mouse from her.
Days of, trading food under the dinner table while secretly communicating.
Days of, her protecting him against a sixth-grade kid in his class spreading unkind words about him.
Days of them playing with car toys, pushing them down a curtain panel pretending it was a ramp for their worldwide famous races.
Days of him surprising her with remembering her favorite colour, when she was certain he was the most unobservant human being on the face of the planet.
______________________________________________________________________________
Constellations are a cluster of stars, collectively they create the outlined premise of famous images in the sky, in the dim light of the moon. Without a single one star, the entire picture collapses and can no longer be recognized. In a sense, family is much like this. Without a single relative, the entire group falls apart, as each individual has a specific role to play. Family will always have your back, support you endlessly, accept you knowing all your flaws, protect you against everyone else. The essence of family is a beautiful thing, sometimes those who you consider family aren’t even blood related to you. Throughout life, it’s important to remember to keep your family close and to never lose sight of how important they are or forget their worth. ✰
Citations
User: Free- Photos. “Pixabay.” Pixabay, pixabay.com/en/stars-constellation-sky-night-sky-124590
March 10, 2018 at 6:43 pm
Dear Natalie,
“Constellations” left me in awe! Your ability to layer on details in this piece was impeccable and enabled me to envision a beautiful picture based on the imagery you conveyed with your words. Even just the little mention of the cookie crumbs on the little girls face made the moment even more cute, special, and real.
“The girl sleeps, giving a soft snore still with cookie crumbs on her lip from earlier.”
I also commend you for being able to structure and space out your piece in a sensible way that doesn’t interrupt the flow of the piece nor tire the reader out.
A note I would offer for growth is to read your piece out loud and fix punctuation as well as wording when sentences don’t sound as smooth as they could be. In addition, remember to capitalize the first word in dialogue even if it’s embedded within a sentence:
“Right before the snap of the picture she says, ‘mommy feels sick and the baby is visiting her.’”
“Right before the snap of the picture she says, ‘Mommy feels sick and the baby is visiting her.’”
Double check periods, commas, and other punctuation after parts of dialogue too!
I was pretty nitpicky on what could be improved for this piece because I couldn’t find almost any flaws, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for your insightful writing, I’ll be looking forward to reading your future posts!
With love,
Faith
March 15, 2018 at 6:49 pm
Dear Faith,
Thank you for showing me the areas that I can improve on in my writing. Next time, I will pay more attention to punctuation and capitalization to ensure I use them properly as I realize this can disrupt my writing flow.
Thank you for providing me your insight on my free choice, I admire all of your work and your feedback means a lot to me!
Sincerely,
Natalie.✰
March 11, 2018 at 8:08 am
Dear Natalie,
Your narrative story is beautiful, and it is unique from all the other pieces which I have read. It’s great to see how this story is related to your personal life. I absolutely love how you gave us insight into your life, before your brother was born. This shows to me the magnitude of the paradigm shift, which you had been impacted by, due to your baby brother’s arrival. The repetition of the line “Days of…” is perfectly placed because of how it gives the reader an idea of the effect your brother had on you. Your lines of imagery were beautiful, and I could easily visualize the entire story.
To improve, I would only recommend to check over any grammatical mistakes. Here and there, as I read through your post, my eye would catch sight of just a few spelling errors, but that can be fixed as you continue to write. Outstanding writers usually do have some mistakes in their pieces of writing, initially, and I want you to be proud that this was the only error I could find.
All in all, this piece was terrific and I could easily relate to your story which made me keep on reading. Your reference of family to constellations was brilliantly put together. I can’t wait to see your next post!
Sincerely,
Abhay
March 15, 2018 at 6:48 pm
Dear Abhay,
I would just like to thank you for taking the time to read my really long post and commenting on it! I really appreciate your thoughts as you are an incredible writer!
Throughout my entire life, I have always struggled with grammar as it does not come easily to me, for my next post I will definitely pay closer attention to my spelling and punctuation.
Once again thank you for giving me suggestions so I can improve the quality of my writing!
Sincerely,
Natalie.✰
March 11, 2018 at 11:45 pm
Dear lovely Natalie,
This piece was absolutely adorable. I love you as a writer because you are capable beyond words, but don’t seem to be aware of it. My favourite part would definitely be the little explanation of the the title, “Constellations,” at the end because you really address the family which was a central theme of the work. Also, as I have said before, I think that your love of light, and everything that surrounds that idea, is such an interesting way of approaching writing.
Like Faith has already mentioned, it would be a good idea to review some of the dialogue rules and to read your work out loud. Reading out loud I find can really help with wording and punctuation.
I love how confused you were in class thinking our posts needed to be 1000 words, but you still managed to create something amazing. I am ready to read more of your work in class and on here! You make me want to be a better writer!
Love,
Nimrat
March 15, 2018 at 6:47 pm
Dear Nimrat,
I appreciate you taking the time to go through my more than 1000 word post, as it is extremely long. Thank you for giving me valuable advice to enhance my writing.
I am glad that in creative writing we are required to comment on each other work, as it has allowed me to realize that throughout my writing I tend to not realize grammar mistakes and different errors that interfere with the flow of my writing; now I know that I need to spend more time editing and looking out for grammatical mistakes.
Once again thank you for taking the time to go through my free choice!
Sincerely,
Natalie.✰