By ARIYANA ASH
Staff Writer
My daughter’s favorite foods are bread and oranges. I always found this to be such an odd and unappealing pairing. Personally, there is nothing appetizing to me about biting into a hunk of yeasty bread and following it with a tart burst of citrus. My daughter always had interesting tastes, and her actions in expressing them have always fascinated me. As a young child, she was always liked for her innovative ideas, her spunky attitude, and bold character. She would make games up for the other kids to play, and she was the person that people went to when their friends ditched them. Something that her grade school teachers would always bring up and praise was her ability to make people feel better, to feel more loved. They thought it a beautiful concept that a child could come to school after a rough morning, their braids crooked and eyes teary, and find comfort in my daughter’s presence. Everyone, from her father, grandmother, teachers, tutors, and friend’s parents assured me that she would go on to do great things in life. She would be a change that people needed, somebody that mattered to people. Something that I admired about her was her ability to never be afraid of being the odd one out. She was more than happy to sit by herself or to entertain herself if need be. Everyday after school, she comes home, plops herself down at the kitchen island, and eats her bread and oranges. She meticulously peels her orange, and then separates her bread. I watch as miniscule crumbs rain down from the bread that is being torn apart. The white flakes pepper the dark marble of the counter. She takes a bite of the bread, and then follows it by biting into the tangy orange as though it were an apple. I look forward to our “bread and oranges time” as she had so sweetly dubbed it when she was a kindergartener. Now, I see that my time with my daughter is fleeting. I remind myself that I should cherish and hold on to the things and people that I hold the most ear to my heart, before they disappear like the bread and oranges on my daughter’s plate.