All About Olive- July 30, 2026

This month my eldest daughter had a life-threatening medical emergency. She woke up with intense abdominal pain, after ignoring a persistent stomachache for weeks, and had to be rushed to the ER by a friend. Luckily, her friend was awake, and by some mystical energetic motherhood connection, I was also awake when she sent me a text message at 4:12 AM telling me she was on her way to the hospital. A CT scan revealed a perforated appendix, and an emergency appendectomy was performed. I drove over 500 miles from North Carolina to Florida, after telling my boss that I needed some time off and arrived in her room just minutes before they took her to surgery.

While she laid in the bed, I looked at her forehead and saw the scar from when she was 10 months old and tried to walk around the coffee table and fell and hit her head on the corner. I was reminded of the time when she was 3 years old and had to have surgery to repair her meniscus in her knee after tearing it by jumping on the trampoline in preschool. This girl was strong. She would get through this. Around the room was a circle of her devoted friends, and me, the mom who drove 500 miles after 3 hours of sleep to be by her side. After she was back home, in bed, medicated, resting and recovering; After the house was cleaned up, the fridge was full of easy to prepare meals; After the emails had been sent to her professors to ask for work extensions; I went to my Sacred Space – a community garden in our neighborhood along a walking path with our dogs. I spent time watching the sunset and admiring the olive tree at the corner of the garden. This olive was the inspiration for the character Olive in my book – Dandelion: Mother of Weeds. This is the tree that always reminds me of my first-born daughter. Tall and strong, with a quite presence. The dark green beauty of the olive leaves felt so like the dark, black eyes of my daughter, watching me while she was a baby drinking her bottle.

The biology of the olive tree makes them remarkable plants, and few trees are as resilient as the olive. Olive trees can withstand freezing temperatures and long, hot summers plagued by drought. Olives live through frost and fires and have an average life span of 500 years. The key to the olive tree’s strength and success are the roots, so deep and strong that they can appear to regenerate after near total decimation. Dandelion’s daughter, Olive, was strong, powerful, and able to withstand hardship, just like my own precious daughter.

Of course, I wish she didn’t have to be so strong. I wish she could be delicate and fragile, and that the world would be tender and kind to her. Unfortunately, I know the world. Her strength will serve her well and so will the community that she has built around her. Surely, this olive tree at the edge of the community garden has seen trauma and difficulties in her lifetime. She had stood strong during hurricanes, winter frosts, diseases and infections. I have to believe, I have to have faith, maybe I have to pretend, that my daughter’s life will be the same. Filled with good times and bad. Sunny days and rainbows will be interspersed with downpours and drought. But my girl is resilient, just like Olive.

 I hope that when others read my book, they will see their own children in Olive. She is a passionate character, filled with her own dreams and desires, pushing against the boundaries that her mother, Dandelion, has set for her protection. She’s a young tree, exploring what it means to be and adult and the freedom and consequences that come with maturity. She is still growing into herself, but her strength and leadership skills are evident even as a sapling. This girl is going to be someone great. She just has to survive all the dangerous situations she puts herself into, despite her mother’s warnings. Remind you of anyone you know?