Before my granny went into the hospital it was me and my mom, and we were happy. We visited her. I didn't have any responsibilities. I didn't have anyone I had to set an example for. I was just being me. I didn't have to look over my shoulder to see if anyone was going to copy me.
I used to play ding dong ditch, knock and run, I was just a kid, I was twelve, and my mom, she gave me a lot more things, she took care of me. Sure, I had a baby brother, but it didn't matter what I did, because he was too little to see what I was doing.
I didn't have a dad in the household. It's like my mama couldn't teach me everything I need to know. She tried her best, but she was a grown lady, and a man is supposed to teach you right from wrong. But I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for her. I'd probably be out gang banging. She worries about me a lot, I guess that means she loves me. I have her to thank today. Cause she knows, me being a boy living in Long Beach around guns and everything, she knows the stuff I could get into.
Back when I was little I was a small cat, I was the smallest of all my friends. I didn't know how to fight, but I had my friends, I knew they'd back me up. I could do what I wanted, I never got in trouble.
I saw my dad sometimes. I saw him on the weekends until I was like ten, but I never did understand why I couldn't see him every day. It hurt me because I wanted to be with him, but when I was, my three brothers were there too. I didn't like to share him, but at least for a long time I didn't have to share my mom.
And then when I was twelve, my baby brother was born. After that all I had to myself was my granny. Whenever we went to her house, I stayed inside and talked to her.
My granny took care of my two cousins, Timothy, he was 8, and Kelli, she was 9. They'd been living with granny since they were little because their mom, my Auntie Shaundra, was a drug addict. She was my granny's oldest daughter. She got AIDS. She died in '95 when Timothy was six months old. So granny was like a mom to them.
I knew them all my life, but I never spent much time with them. When I was at my granny's house I'd be inside with her, and they'd be outside playing. I knew my granny better than anyone.
Then one day I was at my cousin's house. I was outside playing street football. My aunty came out and told me my mom was on the phone. I didn't think anything of it. She looked sad. She knew what my mom was going to tell me. She also knew that I have the weakest heart, the most tender, in the whole family. I don't ever want anyone to feel left out, I care about them a lot. She knew that what my mom was going to say to me was going to hurt bad.
My mom told me that my granny had a heart attack, and she was in the hospital. I dropped the phone, and I started crying. Then later on that night my god-dad took me to see her, it was ten. I was scared. I'd never seen my granny like that, with a tube in her neck. She was hooked onto a respirator. I was afraid she'd die and leave me here to defend myself on my own. She was always there for me to talk to, when things wasn't going good with my mom, she would take me places. I didn't know how to deal with the thought of not seeing her. It was a hole in my life. I didn't know what to fill it with. It was an empty space in my heart.
When I was in the waiting room, sitting there by myself, I was thinking, what will I do if my granny dies? How will I act? I knew that if she died, Timothy and Kelli would come to live with us. I knew I'd have to show responsibility, because my mom, I love her, but she didn't show responsibility around the little kids. She's smoking weed and stuff. Maybe if they couldn't look up to her, they could look up to me.
My granny never got better. She was in a nursing home for six months before she died. We used to go see her almost every day, and it looked like she was getting better. She couldn't talk, but she could move her lips, and we could understand what she was saying. They had taken out her voice box to put the tube in. And then one day she had another heart attack. She died, but they brought her back with the electro shock paddles. She was a vegetable. My mom went to see her. My mom, she was calling her name, but my granny, she was just looking into the sky, like she was gone. She was there but she wasn't there, and it hurt me to see my mom cry.
And then Timothy and Kelli came to live with us. It was hard for my mom, she didn't have a job, we were struggling. We had enough food for us, but not for two other mouths to feed, but she made a way -- well, god made a way -- for it to happen.
But it wasn't easy. I had to stop playing with my mom. I'd joke around, see, she'd ask me to do something and I'd refuse like, "No, I won't do it." It was a game. But Timothy and Kelli didn't think it was a joke, they took it seriously. And so when my mom asked them to do something, they refused and they meant it. Suddenly, I was a role model.
One night I had stayed out late. My mama had told me to come home early, but I didn't, and by the time I was ready to come home the busses had stopped running. I called my mama, and she told me to stay there, she'd come get me. It was late. It was cold. I didn't know that my little brother and Timothy were sick. They had a fever. She had to get them out of bed and take them in the car to come get me at ten o'clock at night. It made me think, wow, they could have gotten worse because of me. That's when I realized that every decision I made affects them too. I knew I had to stop playing childish games. I vowed to push myself to make everything perfect, if I didn't, I'd fail my little cousins. I couldn't do that.
Without a dad to teach me, I had to become a man on my own. Life taught me. Having to take care of my cousins taught me. It's been four years and I still miss my granny so much to this day. But I think she'd be proud of me.
Courtesy of Peace4Kids.
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