Lights out

Today was independence day for my five year old. Independence Day is when all the kindergarteners must walk into school by themselves instead of being escorted by a parent. As I pulled into the “kiss and go” line, PJ, my doppelganger son, said he didn’t want to do it. I told him he had to. So I gave him the requisite morning breath mint that he demands each morning, hugged him, and off he went. He looked back at me several times. It was the saddest little face I have ever seen. For some reason, it made me go back to 1984.

Mom and I were living in Phoenix, grandma was living in NY. My mother was notified that Grandma had a stroke. My mother worked as a domestic and she did the best she could. We didn’t have a phone. I remember we walked to make the collect call to Uncle KD and he delivered the news to Mom. She had been deathly afraid to fly but she bought a plane ticket for herself, left me in the care of my cousin Bobby, and she went to NY. Things would never be the same after that trip.

When she returned, she couldn’t catch up on her bills because she used the bill money for the plane ticket. We moved in with Bobby. I remember some hippy-types next door and their electricity was turned off so Bobby shared his electricity with them. Then Bobby’s was turned off and they shared with us. Mom never recovered financially. I remembered playing Prince’s “Last night, I spent another lonely, lonely Christmas” to get me through the holidays. Shortly after, Grandma died.

We went to NY for what was supposed to be the funeral, supposed to be temporary. We never returned. Three months after Grandma died, I found myself in Farmville, NC hating life. Twenty-four years later, I’m still in NC, but now in Greenville. My mother is not the same since Grandma died. Gone is her fear of flying because she said the worst thing that could possibly happen to her, the loss of her beloved mother, had already happened. When I look back at that time I imagine that my face looked just like PJ’s forlorn face this morning. 

I have a soft spot for hippies and outcasts and for people who are so poor that they have to “share” electricity. God bless us all.

Peace, be multiplied…