Ode to Ananas

I was five, celebrating my dad´s birthday in a lovely coastal town in Lithuania. It was just the three of us: my mom, my dad, and me. We were eating smoked fish, and there was a big ananas on the table. A starry August night—romantic for them, cozy for me.

They left to observe the stars from the balcony, leaving me alone with snacks and crayons. As I sat there, staring at the strange, textured fruit, a terrible thought struck my little mind: "One day, they will die, and I will stay."

The weight of the idea crushed me, and I began crying with a desperate, overflowing grief I couldn’t contain. They ran to me, alarmed by my tears. When I explained my sudden realization, they looked at each other with a mix of perplexed confusion and soft, bittersweet smiles.

Instead of shielding me from the truth—at that moment, they still felt almighty in my eyes—they took their time to respond. Then, they told me that it would take a long time for that day to come, and until then, we could share so many beautiful moments together.

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and their words confirmed my newfound reality: the world now seemed fragile, fleeting, and unbearably ephemeral. In the face of life’s impermanence, I found only one refuge. I began to build my own world—a place where I could retreat from the ache of love’s transience and the ever-present shadow of loss. The world where big felines and wise snake-trees would protect me from abandonment.