It was late in the fall or early in the winter of 2011 or 2012, and I had sole custody of the children. Their mother had left our family for a crack dealer that moonlighted as a pimp; a guy named Mike with gold teeth.
More specifically, she ended our relationship and left the kids with her sister in an arrangement known as kinship care. This granted her guardianship of the children and paid her a certain amount of money per month. It’s a state or federally funded program I suppose.
She left after we were evicted from a house on the southside of Milwaukee. An eviction that was very puzzling at the time because I had recently given her the money necessary to avoid it–500 dollars. She was supposed to give it to the landlord, God knows what she actually did with it. Knowing her, she probably brought fake hair and nails, but I digress.
For a while, every weekend I would pick the kids up from her sister’s house and they would visit with me at my mother’s. I was staying with her until I had saved up enough money to get my own place. This continued until one day when I was taking them back to their aunt, and my daughter said she didn’t want to go back. I tried to explain to her that I had to go to work and that we would see each other again soon, but she was nearly in tears. I suspected that it was an easier transition for our son because his aunt had a son he could play with.
Anyway, it didn’t sit well with me to leave my daughter somewhere she didn’t want to be and so I took the children back to my mother’s with me, unsure of how I was going to pull off keeping them and my job. It was still summer so I didn’t have to worry about getting the kids to school but I would need a sitter while I was at work the next day, and in the days to come if I was going to pursue gaining sole custody. That night I laid the children down in the room in the bed I used as a child and read them a bedtime story before kissing them good night; events that had taken place many a night before, but this time uncertainty had taken up residence in my thoughts.
I took a seat at the kitchen table, lit a cigarette and waited for my mother to return from her second job as a personal care worker; her summer job. During the school year, she was employed as a handicapped children’s assistant. After work, she usually came to the kitchen and made a light meal before sitting down to watch the news. Upon hearing her pull up outside, I made my way to the living room to open the front door and greet her. I gave her a while to get settled in before I told her that the kids hadn’t left and were upstairs asleep. Surprise and concern caused the brown skin on her brow to furrow and her head cocked to one side– she knew I had work in the morning.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as she took a bowl of salad out of the refrigerator and closed the door.
I sat down at the kitchen table, lit another cigarette, inhaled the smoke deep into my lungs, exhaled some of it and told her everything, including my decision to seek full custody of the children.
“Of course you could never leave the children somewhere or with someone they don’t want to be with, trust their instincts. And I support you in your decision to get custody. As far as tomorrow morning, I will watch the kids until you get off work and make it home. We just gotta make it work, if we need your sister to help with sitting, then so be it.” Mom said, sitting down at the table to eat her salad.
In the days to come, we worked out our schedules with my sister and I was able to keep the children and continue working; though I eventually applied for, and got, welfare and food stamps to help me take care of them.
In the beginning, their aunt resisted giving up guardianship of the children, but as it became obvious that I wouldn’t take no for an answer she relented and we met at a local courtesy exchange in order for a notary public to witness her sign over for guardianship to me.
After a few months, I had saved up enough to move and find a place not too far from my mother’s house for me and the children. By that time, the school year had begun and I needed even more of my mother and sister’s help to get by and they graciously obliged.
It was during this time, late in the fall or early in the winter, that my mother came by the apartment to pick up the children and take them to school so I could make it to work on time. She did this every morning and it was a great help that I always thanked her profusely for.
Unfortunately, I was running late this particular morning. Maybe I had overslept, thus forcing my mother to have to come up to our apartment and help get the kids ready to keep us on schedule.
Because she parked in the back, the quickest way up was a stairwell on the side of the building. Now this stairwell was old, and the stairs were rickety, my mother had complained about them before. Nevertheless, she ascended them, and upon her entering the apartment I apologized to her for my lateness and she forgave me, though she was annoyed by having to come up and was vocal about it.
With her help though, the children got to school on time and I made it to work on time. That morning was years ago, and my beautiful, loving, and caring mother has since passed away. It’s a curious thing to me; having the vivid recollection of that particular morning out of all of the mornings she came by and took the children to school–but I do. Perhaps it’s because of a poem she used to quote from time to time. Her favorite poem by Langston Hughes is titled “Mother to Son,”and the line my mother used to quote was “life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” I don’t know what it is that cements that morning into my memory, but I genuinely regret with everything that is me, that my mother– the best friend I ever had, ascended and descended those rickety stairs.
