Metanoia: A Change of Heart

Chapter XXXXVII ~ Joshua

I woke up when the sun just started to shine because May was banging the door on the side of our bathroom. She should be the one here but she said she had a project to do and closed both doors of her room. Well, an hour or two with my grandmother wasn't that bad. I honestly missed her despite her attitude and franking.

"Jay-jay! Place the pot over there." My grandmother said as she pointed her garden trowel beside the pavement floor of our backyard. I obeyed and carried the ten kilogram pot.

"Did your mother even touch her garden after I left last time?" She asked mockingly."She won't even know what to do here, grandma." I said and wondered how my parents doing in their business trip. I was also thinking about Jude and Thonia. I hoped things were doing fine in the hospital.

Thonia...

Her name was recited—haunting—in my head repeatedly. I missed her already. I wanted to be with her right now.

Thonia...

She sighed and ignored that I called just her 'grandma' one more time instead of Mommy Cookie that sounded too childish for me. "I know, I know. She has black thumb! Opposite of green thumb just like your father." She continued fixing the plants by cutting, tying, and digging them.

"Do you need any help?" I asked.

Instead of answering, she laughed in amusement and gazed at a flower pot she just fixed.

"One more pot left," she said and reached out a blue ribbon and scissors. I took them and asked what to do. "Cut a ribbon for me."

"How long?" I asked.

Thonia...

She dug the soil of the pot and seemed not to hear me. I repeated my question and she said, still without facing me, "Not too long and not too short."

I scratched my head. How long would that really be? "Is three-inch enough? Nine, twenty?" I asked patiently.

"Not too long and not too short," she said one more time, nonchalantly.

Thonia...

I just cut approximately ten inches of the ribbon and handed to her. "Is this enough?"

She finally turned to me and checked the ribbon. "It's too long!" She said.

I was about to cut it in half but she got grabbed it anyway. She faced the pot again and did her gardening. I stood there and listened to what she was saying—about gardening and my mother's black thumb—when she called me again. "Jay-jay, this ribbon," she raised the ribbon that I had cut for me to see. "This ribbon is too long to bind this stem with this stick, but it's not enough to tie a truck like that." She pointed to a tree beside our house. "A thing may be small to some but big to others, depending on how or who will use it."

"It varies." I let out, senseless.

She gave me a short glance then nodded. "It varies."

I could not take Thonia out of my mind! I really need to see her and know she's fine.

"Joshua."

"Yep?" I perked from my slouch before I realized she just called me my real name. "Yes, Mommy Cookie?" Just then, our name-crisis ended.

"Can you do me a favor?" She beckoned me to come closer to the last flower pot she was fixing. I saw that she'd tied the blue ribbon, binding the stem of the green leafy plant to a piece of stick. "See this?" I ducked next to her and checked what she's talking about. Closely, there was a cut on the middle of the stem. She held it gently. "Take good care of this cut until the stem finally healed, until it's strong enough to stand firm without the stick." She turned to me and glared, showing she was serious. "Understand?"