The foster care system is a necessary evil in this country. It is an institution that is suppose to be a solution for children who need temporary shelter to escape an abusive or neglectful situation. In June of 1984, my siblings and I were introduced to Chicago’s foster care system. My mother was charged with…
Tag: home
Fire!
Nights in the apartment produced voices that only my mother heard. She would fight against the voices with prayer and reading the Bible. She would sit us in a circle and read to us from the Bible. If our young eyes got heavy, we would be awaken by yells or a hit upside the head. Some nights my mother had to compete with our neighbor who would play Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust. I never recall meeting this neighbor, but my young impression was he was crazy. I was becoming fully exposed and recognized crazy.
Doll House
So all year the focus was on miniature furniture. There was an antique sewing machine, a mahogany dining table with chairs, a four poster bed and a kitchen table. I then watched Grams make table clothes, small bath towels with tiny pink flowers and linens. I watched the collection grow bigger every month. She would polish every piece and place them in shoeboxes. I was always impressed with the details put into every item. I wonder what type of person had that much patience and creativity to be able to create every item. I was convinced at one point that there was a factory of little elves making warehouse filled with manicure furniture.
A place to call home
I used to imagine that the splattered seeds mixed with the green and white chunks of Osage-orange flesh were what brains on the pavement would look like. I thought that until a few kids and I stumbled on a bunch of blood and what appeared to be brain matter on the ground behind a building on our walk to school just about a week before. It was not the same, at all! We, I mean I, poked at some of the larger greyish chunks with a pencil from my bag. I was so fascinated by the soft and delicateness of it. It didn’t seem reasonable that this soft fragile mass could be the source of who we were. I could not comprehend what happened to the magic of the memories, thoughts, and love as the neurons that produced them lay in the street.
