Today I walked past a car and through its cloud of exhaust, and the smell enveloped me in a rash of memories, of an ex-boyfriend of my mother who drove a beat up Corolla, who yelled loudly at the TV for his favorite teams the Celtics and the Yankees, and yelled louder at my mother. In the morning I would go outside and kids in the neighborhood would laugh about the screaming they heard, I was a small kid and didnt understand the shame I felt. Even more so when he shoved her to the ground, and with curses spray painted in the bedroom. All this in a single puff of exhaust. She didnt always have luck with men. One was kind and quiet, except on the day he kicked my ass on a beach in the Dominican Republic, and the meat pies I ate there later gave me an amoebic infection that knocked me out of school for 2 weeks. Another was brilliant and tortured, who left medical school because of the callousness he saw, and took his own life, a fact I later shared at show and tell, and didnt start to cry until my caring teacher took me aside and held me. Only a part of my childhood, worse than some, better than others, but all of it vital to the man Ive become and the love I have for my beautiful, strong mother. She kept going through all of this and the death of my brother, and to this day is always there for me. Im thankful for the experiences, all of them.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 14:38:10 +0000
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