Juniper Blossoms

Two years. It had been two years since Juniper lost her husband. Life had moved at alternating speeds, some days feeling like years, others passing by so quickly she thought she may have dreamed them. Juniper had adjusted to her new normal as best she could, but anniversaries always hit the hardest. It was the anniversaries which made Luke’s absence glaringly obvious.

“Laying in bed and being miserable is not going to help you feel better,” Juniper reminded herself. Acting before she lost her motivation, she rolled out of bed and trudged to the shower. She stood under the water and allowed herself to wake up for a few minutes before washing her hair. As she got out of the shower, she looked at herself in the mirror, giving her reflection words of encouragement. She just had to get through the day. One step at a time.

Juniper threw on her work clothes and walked down the hall. She opened the door to her daughter’s room. Sage was six months old when her father was killed by a drunk driver. Now at two and a half she was a shining reflection of him, her dark brown ringlets a disheveled mess on top of her head.

“Good morning, sweetheart. It’s time to wake up,” Juniper rubbed her daughter’s back soothingly, watching her stretch and squirm. Sage slowly blinked her eyes open and sat up. Juniper picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. She sat her down on her little toilet and left to go make breakfast.

“Mommy, I go potty!” Sage yelled proudly, running into the kitchen. Juniper laughed when she turned around to see a pantless little person standing in the kitchen.

“Good job, my big girl! Let’s go get you cleaned up and pick a sticker,” Juniper said. Sage plodded back into the bathroom. After Sage chose a Moana sticker for her potty chart, Juniper dressed her daughter and gathered her things. Sage was going to have to bring breakfast to daycare this morning, as they had both slept in.

When they arrived at daycare, Juniper set Sage up at the breakfast table, kissed her goodbye, and ran out the door. She looked at her watch. Plenty of time… if she sped. Juniper pulled into the school parking lot only two minutes late. She grabbed her bag and walked inside.

Juniper worked for a counseling company, helping children with mental health disorders. Her role was to help the adults in the child’s life, be it family or school staff, learn better ways to manage problem behaviors, while also helping to teach the child ways to better express themselves. Juniper walked into her client’s classroom and put her things down at table. Her supervisor was already there. Sitting beside him, she threw him an exasperated smile.

“Hey Marc,” Juniper greeted him. He continued typing at his computer for a few seconds before looking up and smiling. Juniper had known Marc for five years and in their time on the job, they had become friends.

“June, what are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you to come in considering the day,” Marc frowned. Juniper kept most of her personal life private from her coworkers, but considering their friendship, she had shared her struggles with Marc.

“I know, but I feel like I’d rather have a distraction today. And what better way to distract myself than by spending time with my absolute favorite clinician of all time,” Juniper gave him a cheesy smile. Marc shook his head and smiled. Juniper turned her attention to her client. He was in an emotional support class. He was eight and had lived through more abuse than most people ever will. Thankfully he was finally away from his father, but this left his mother struggling to raise him and his siblings alone. Theo was defiant and occasionally aggressive, but what concerned Juniper more was his low self esteem and inability to trust adults.

Theo was sitting at his desk, waiting to begin his work for the day. Juniper waved at him and he smiled back. She had built a strong relationship with him and was happy to see him starting to open up to his teachers and classmates. Juniper took out her work binder and began to track Theo’s behaviors on a data sheet. This helped show how his behaviors developed over time and proved to the insurance company that mental health services were benefiting the children receiving them. Every time Theo follows a direction he got a plus sign. Every time he refused to complete his work a minus. For each positive peer interaction, a plus, and so on.

“June, do you have your data sheets from last week?” Marc asked, looking through his mess of papers. For someone so clinically minded, Marc was definitely the opposite of organized. Juniper was unsure if it was his unwillingness to replace his binder that was falling apart, or just a personality trait. June signed, digging through her bag.

“I probably have them somewhere, although with all that mess how do you know that they’re even missing” June jabbed playfully.

“Hey, organized chaos, I know where things are. Trust the system,” Marc said, winking playfully. June found her data sheets in her bag. She sighed in defeat.

“Okay, fine, I forgot. Just remember how absolutely charming and delightful I am,” she mumbled.

“You know, I hate to nit-pick, because you are so good at every other aspect of this job, but you kill me with the late data,” Marc sighed. June had a hard time telling if he was joking or not. Marc had an unusual sense of humor that could be hard to read. Many people in the office whispered about how he was so strange and awkward. They wondered if he was on the autism spectrum. Juniper’s response was always the same: “if he is, that only makes him better equipped to meet client needs. But i don’t particularly see how it’s anyone’s business but his own.”

“So sorry I can’t do everything right all the time,” June quipped back.

“It’s fine, just try. I beg of you, please try to get them in on time next week,” Marc said, sighing in defeat. June smiled and looked back over at Theo. He was struggling with independent reading and she could see the frustration building up in his face. June crossed the room to him and sat beside him.

“What’s going on?” she asked casually. Theo very much liked to be treated like an adult, not coddled or given too much sympathy. With his background, positive attention still tended to make him uncomfortable. The best approach was calm and relaxed. Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared straight at the page, ignoring her question. “Theo, what’s up? Do you need a break?”

“I just can’t do this, it’s so stupid. I’m not going to ever need this anyway,” he yelled, throwing his book down. He wiped away his tears and put his head down on the desk.

“To read? You’re never going to need to learn how to read? Really, dude?” June joked. Theo shrugged his shoulders, but looked up at her. “Look, I know it’s hard, but it won’t get any easier if you quit every time it gets tough. If you’re frustrated, you can take a break, do deep breathing, or use your stress ball. But quitting isn’t the answer. Now, what would you like to do?”

“Stress ball,” Theo mumbled. Juniper stood and grabbed his stress ball from out of the supply closet. She handed it to him and he squeezed it in his hand. Juniper stayed next to him, but looked down at her paper and pretended to work. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was slowly deescalating. After three minutes, he handed the ball back. “I’m done.”

“Cool,” Juniper said, grabbing the stress ball. “Hey, I know you got frustrated, but I’m proud of you for redirecting it to something appropriate. I’d like to see you start to use your coping skills independently, but I’m always here if you need help. Are you ready to give reading another shot?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Theo said quietly. He returned his attention to his book and resumed reading. Juniper smiled and walked back to her seat. She plopped back down and documented the interaction on her data sheet.

A few hours later, Juniper was on her way to pick up Sage. She walked up the daycare stairs and searched the room for her daughter. Her eyes landed on the toddler playing in the toy kitchen with a little girl. When Sage noticed her mother, she dropped everything and sprinted towards her. Juniper wrapped Sage up in a big hug, then redirected her back to the toys she had dropped. Sage cleaned them up while Juniper chatted with the teacher about the day.

Once home, Juniper prepared dinner and she and Sage ate together. June smiled listening to her daughter babble about her day and it hurt her heart to know that Luke was missing out on this. It hurt even more that Sage was going to miss out on Luke.

When dinner was finished she bathed Sage and read her a story. By the end of the book, Sage was asleep. Juniper locked up the house and retreated to her room. Quickly stripping down to her pajamas, she threw her hair up in a bun and flopped down on her bed. The tears came quickly, as the stress of the day pushed down on her like a heavy weight. It just wasn’t fair. At some point in the night, the tears ran out and June drifted into an uncomfortable sleep.