A Tourist in Mayberry

5/7) Hero: My Mom

Heroes are sometimes sitting across from us at the kitchen table.

My mama and her sisters had a hard bringing up. My Nana Gail is wise now and so funny, but she was once a complete trainwreck. She was by definition a missed opportunity, many missed opportunities. She married all the wrong men. She said when she was younger that she had a taste for shit. That taste kept my Nana's head barely above water and made sure her children were constantly dog paddling in poverty.

My Nana worked hard all her life, but her men did not. They were the worst kind of poor because most people did not know they were poor because they were proud and did not shout it out. Candi and her sisters did their best to hide it. There was never any money for ordinary things other kids took for granted, like shampoo or conditioner. Four beautiful girls with long, curly hair used bar soap to wash their hair. The sisters made do. They wore hand-me-downs and shared prom dresses. High school was the worst. No money for school pictures, cheerleading uniforms, a ball glove, a varsity jacket, a fee for the SAT, or lunch.

These were the days when other kids knew if you were on free and reduced lunch, and the girls were prideful. My mom took peanut butter crackers for lunch in high school. Sometimes there was barely enough peanut butter for the crackers to stick together. She would reuse the cellophane she wrapped them in and the wrinkled paper sack she carried them in for weeks. Her friends never knew. Well, maybe one friend did because she would say as she was eating her cheeseburger, "I can't believe you are not eating school lunch today Candi. I love these fries. I hate peanut butter myself."

This was the same friend, her name was Melissa, who noticed when Candi wore something new, which was rare. She pointed it out to all the girls. When Nana Gail started selling jewelry in one of her get rich quick schemes, she had samples that the sisters and Candi could wear to school. Melissa said to Candi, "I can't get over how strange it is to see you with jewelry. You never wear jewelry. It looks funny on you." Candi was embarrassed. She was despondent and war weary from teenage mind battles. She took off the jewelry and never wore it back to school.

Poverty is exhausting. My mom's house was like the house in my favorite short story, DH Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" where the house is whispering and then shouting about the need for more money. Poverty is like that. It shouts.

My mom worried about things she should not have had to worry about. Stuff I never have to worry about, though we are poor too. I will add here that my mom and I are poor so I can't say I never wanted for anything, because I do. I am a teenager and we don't know wants from needs. They are one and the same. Teenagers need a cell phone, need a boyfriend, need to make the team. We need these things like we need air to breathe, and no adult will ever understand us, or how what we want is the same thing as what we need.

Some adults remember the want and how it felt, but they think going without made them tough, and you need to toughen up too. Those people want you to suffer like they did. My mama is not like that.

When money gets tighter than normal, my mom gets antsy. When she was confronted by Dr. Brook and lost her job working private duty at Riverview, she found another one. Though her woman's intuition told her to walk away from the mayor job, her fear of no money kept her going back. She was determined her girl Daisy was not going to eat peanut butter crackers barely stuck together for lunch everyday.

That determination to do right by me spelled disaster for my mom.

That is all I am going to say about this because it is just too painful for a daughter to talk about. All you need to know is Mayor Booker was a despicable person who couldn't sweet talk my mom, and he was a man who was used to getting his way and knew exactly what to do to get it.

My mom, tough as she was, didn't stand a chance.

Author's Insight: Dedicated to my beloved sisters who know this story of Candi's childhood all to well.