I lived with my grandmother mostly all my life. When I was little my granny was my hero, she was a nurse, so I wanted to be a nurse too. She has tiny feet, and when I was in the second grade I snuck her nurse shoes out of her closet, and wore them to school. When my teacher asked about them, I told her, "Doctor's orders." And when my granny found out, she just laughed.
One day, when I was sad, I told her I wanted to be a nurse like her. She smiled, she was like, "Oh, that's cute, but do you want to know why I decided to be a nurse?" I nodded, and she told me the reason was because she saw the women in those little white dresses, and she wanted to wear that crisp white dress with the cute nursing shoes, too. And then we both started laughing -- I felt better. I can go and talk to her about anything and she understands.
She wants me to do better than she did. She doesn't want me to go through the things she went through. She grew up too fast, she had my mom at the age of seventeen. She had no job. Her mom, my great grandmother, was a cleaning lady, she scrubbed other people's toilets and washed their clothes, my granny didn't want to do that. So she went to nursing school.
My mom says my granny wasn't there for her. She says she was always working. But she had to. She was trying to make a better life for my mom. My mom had her grandparents to take care of her when my granny wasn't there.
My mom has lots of issues. She's a drama queen. She's always been that way. She must want another life or something. Sometimes, she'll change her name, she'll say to me, "Your mom's on vacation, I'm aunty Lydia." It's sort of funny.
But other times it's not. When I was seven someone was shot in our building, and the police were there. They wouldn't let my mom go into our apartment looking for my brothers and my cousins. She screamed and tried to get in. They couldn't quiet her down. She was disturbing the peace, that's what they said. So they put her in handcuffs and they arrested her and put her in the cop car. I was standing with her and she was holding my hand. She wouldn't let go, so they put handcuffs on me too and put me in the cop car. I didn't want to go to jail with her. I was scared.
My granny loves my mom, but she doesn't want to put up with her stuff. Me and my mom, we bump heads all the time. But I thought my granny would always be there.
And then one day I was waiting at the bus stop with my brother Richie, we were going to the swap meet, when his phone rang. It was my sister saying that granny was in the hospital. I was crying on the bus, people were looking at me, I didn't care. When we got there I ran into the hospital. The doctors said that she had a heart attack and they didn't know if she was gonna survive through the night. My heart dropped to the floor, I felt like I just lost a part of me I could never get back.
I didn't know what I was going to do -- she kept a roof over our head, she bought me clothes, took care of me. If she'd died, we'd probably be homeless, even though my sisters have jobs. Our rent is a thousand a month, and one sister works for the school district, the other for Robinson's May, we could never afford the rent by ourselves.
But I didn't care about the money, I just wanted my nana. I didn't want to see her in the hospital bed heavily medicated with tubes and IVs everywhere, not even knowing that we were there to help her get better. I cried myself to sleep that night.
Before, when family members had died, nana would say they're going to a better place. I'd say, "But why did they have to die?" And she'd tell me, "Well, it was their time to go, god was missing an angel." My granny was my angel, and I didn't want her to go.
I lived in a house full of people, I shared a bedroom, and there was always someone in every room in the house. Everyone needs alone time sometimes. So when I needed a place to escape, I'd go lock myself in the bathroom. They'd be looking for me and I'd be asleep in the bathtub, or on the bathroom floor. I've done it all my life.
My granny is the only one who'd ask me what's wrong. She'd say, "Open the door. What if something happened to you when you were locked in there, what would we do? We'd be so sad." I'd feel so bad and so I'd come out. We'd talk about what happened, and she'd always say, "If anybody comes to mess with you, you can always come to me," and I believed her. Without her, I'd have no one to watch my back.
My granny is much better now. She made it through, and she's stronger for it. She was strong before, but once you overcome an obstacle like this, you have a different sight on things -- she pulled through because we needed her.
She told me she saw more in her grandkids than she saw in anybody else. We don't have to be the people who turn to drugs, we can go to school and get an education, that can be our drug. I realized I have to go to school, otherwise I will end up like those people in the streets, the drug dealers in the crack house next door, or the prostitutes who work my neighborhood.
I know Granny won't always be there to give me a roof over my head, or to get me out of the bathroom when I'm sad. After she got out of the hospital I stopped locking myself in. I talk to her instead.
And right now I wanna say, you made it nana, and that is most important to me. If you didn't know then I'm telling you now, you are the light of my life and can't nobody take that away. You mean the world to me. I'll love you always. I've come to the conclusion that no one lives forever, but nana, I want to spend my part of forever with you.
Courtesy of Peace4Kids.
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