{"id":1568,"date":"2021-04-24T09:15:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-24T17:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2021-04-24T09:15:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T17:15:43","slug":"the-unsuspecting-gardener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/?p=1568","title":{"rendered":"The Unsuspecting Gardener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It began innocently, the way most things do\u2014\nthe seed planted in good ground, the ovum\nsplitting again and again, the first cigarette\nheld to your lips between three fingers\nin the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall\u2014\n\nwhen you reached too far to pull the last weed\nfrom beneath the narcissus, their heads\nalready dead and gone. Somehow the tilt of body\nwrong, you plummeted to the brick walk.\nAfter, you limped into the house, surveyed\n\nthe leg, which in days ahead turned purple,\nblue. The cost of growing old, you thought.\nAn inconvenience. Nothing that stopped you\nfrom cooking dinner, making the bed, speaking\nto your daughter on the phone. And Thursday,\n\nthe day you always went into town for groceries,\nlaundry, a visit to the local bookstore\u2014you did\nthat too. Even went out for an evening of music,\nas your lower leg swelled and hurt\nmore than it should. How could you know\n\nthat your very bones had betrayed you\u2014\nthe orderly birth of white and red cells turned\ninto pandemonium, a blossoming of random\nblasts, good for nothing except chaos\u2014invisible\ncancer growing? No lumps on your breasts\n\nwhen you raised your arm and felt around,\nno bleeding or black lungs. Only a bit of tiredness,\na new drag to your step that could have been age,\nthat could have been anything\u2014a virus, a slight\ncold, the humid air weighing you down.\u00a0\n\ndecember\nVolume 30.1<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It began innocently, the way most things do\u2014 the seed planted in good ground, the ovum splitting again and again, the first cigarette held to your lips between three fingers in the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall\u2014 when you reached too far to pull the last weed from beneath the narcissus, their heads already … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “The Unsuspecting Gardener”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1569,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions\/1569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}