What If I Told You

What If I Told You... We are all connected? That is why your addictions are so powerful. That is why progress is slow. That is why change is hard. Would you take my place in society while I forge on? I muse to myself, imagining what I will tell my future dental students. Was it medical or was it philosophical? I couldn't tell without risking overthinking it. I never imagined I'd be standing here, on the edge of the mountains that cradle my Maw-ma's life like a well-kept secret. She always said these hills had a way of holding onto things-memories, people, even time itself. I used to laugh at that, brushing it off as another one of her mountain myths, the kind that made her eyes light up like the fireflies that danced in the twilight of our summers. But now, with her gone, standing here feels like standing in the middle of one of her deep exhales- breezy, desolate. It is like chasing the wind- remembering the last remnants of her love, her support. The support I never knew I needed until it was gone. My Smoky Mountain English was beginning to bubble up to the surface as I settled onto the mostly bald land my Maw-ma left me. I could practically see myself saying terms like, "britches" and "holler." How was I going to incorporate this almost archaic dialect into my dental practice? I did not know. I hadn't set foot in Appalachia since I was a teenager, running away from its quiet stubbornness, seeking the rush of city life in Los Angeles. But when the lawyer called and told me about the will, about the garden, I felt something deep within me stir-like the roots of an old tree finally waking up. Had I been that blind to her devotion? The boomers were running here and there, and I was caught mid-dance by the breeze as I made my way up to the big wooden gate of my ancestral inheritance. I didn't earn this prize, it was handed down by my family who took great pride in its upkeep. The garden was Maw-ma's secret, hidden away like a treasure she only meant to reveal to me once she was gone. "You'll need it when the world starts feeling too heavy," she said, her voice soft and knowing, as if she could see the years ahead, where life would wear me down in ways I couldn't yet imagine. She successfully turned a plot of dirt into a beautiful oasis fit for a queen. She was that queen until recently. Now, the garden needed a new tender, a new priestess. Maw-ma was hard on me, but I love her more for it now as I look across the rose bushes. My Cali friends unwittingly prepared me for my new destiny. What did they see in Eliza Frost? What did Maw-ma see?