A Loving Trial

Vanessa Raney

In the village people grew up poor, with
some wanting more and finding it. If
college was nothing they could have, a
few still earned professional distinction – say, as
a chef for over 20 years – and made sure their
children had the opportunities their
parents had no money for (though they
never turned their backs on them, loving them for
what they taught them, sharing how
they woke up every day at 7a though they
had little food to eat – the reason their
pantries show a surplus now). These women, they
keep close at least one progeny since
expanded with a spouse, and two kids (the
norm in places like Croatia), living downstairs from
their grand/kids, dropping in and sharing meals, talking while,
sometimes, they ramble on about the differences, from the
ways that they were raised; yet still they take the
newer generations and show them how to cook, play with
them the way grand/mothers should, laughing at the sting,
their memories a loving trial when, today, they're orphans both.