Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back writer and poet Jill Y. Crainshaw of North Carolina with a captivating short story, “A Rosemary By Any Other Name,” the runner-up in our “Dreams” short story contest. Rosemary, our narrator, speaks of her mother, Madeline, a woman whose nobility of spirit and perceptiveness are hidden by her eccentricity and impulsive nature. It has taken many years for Rosemary to understand the purpose that guided Madeline, a single mother raising a daughter in a judgmental world.
“Me? I wasn’t named for a cousin or an aunt—if I even had any relatives with reliable names.
No, I was named for an herb in a stranger’s garden. For a scent on the wind.
These days I honor a deeper wisdom than I could imagine then: even windblown names have roots. And sometimes they draw us toward a true oasis. Just not right away.”
The story climaxes at the funeral of Mr. Fisher, a pillar of the community. Madeline tries to place her gaudy ring onto the corpse’s hand, creating quite a scene.
“The fire inside me didn’t flinch even when I inhaled the cold air outside. My hands curled into tight fists. I crammed them in my coat pockets. The anger and embarrassment sharpened my words. “What were you thinking?”
For the first time in my life—and the only time—she stopped moving toward the next mirage. Whirled around. Pointed her ring-orphaned finger at me. “You want to know what I was thinking? Think you are grown up enough to know?””
Jill creates vivid and believable characters. Many details of Madeline’s story remain untold, but what is revealed gives us an idea of what has been submerged for decades. It is so easy to lose sight of the humanity of our parents, and often it is only in death that we realize that they had an inner world we knew little about, one that, in many cases, sacrificed itself for our benefit. Their dreams and motivations remain mysterious.
Read “A Rosemary By Any Other Name” in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Jill Y. Crainshaw is a poetic theologian, professor, and storyteller whose work weaves sacred wisdom through ordinary life. Her writing—spanning poetry, fiction, and spiritual reflection—centers bodies, silence, and the thresholds of becoming.
“Dr. Jill,” as her students call her, is the author of several books on liturgy and justice, and her creative work has appeared in literary and spiritual journals across the U.S. Her poetry collection, When the Sun Was a Poet, was published by Kelsay Books in 2024. Her new collection, Hip-Gnosis: A Skeletal Tale of Healing, will be available from Kelsay books in 2026.