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CHAPTER THREE: LONG TIME, NO SEE january, 1984
As the sun descended down from the sky, I found myself resting my legs upon the wooden park bench while my eyes scanned through the book I now held in my hands. It was a rather warm Wednesday in California, which I could say was extremely rare as there has never been a single warm day of January in California history.
But the outcome of today's weather is a pleasant one, if I do say so myself. Benefit of being the only non-busy Jackson - I took the day as my chance to bond with my nieces and nephews. I decided on bringing them to the park this afternoon, giving them a chance to enjoy the weather while we had it.
As of right now, Taj and Taryll were engaging in a game of basketball. Jermaine Jr was kicking around the soccer ball with Tj and Siggy while Marlon and Brandi played in the sandbox. Stacee and Yashi, of course were drawing chalk portraits on the sidewalk along with Valencia and Brittany. With Autumn being under the weather, she couldn't tag along. She had a cough that, unfortunately became worse with each passing day.
It started over a week ago, and I encouraged Hazel and Jermaine to take her to the hospital which they did, but only to get told it was only a cough and that it should disappear in just a few days. As of what I'm saying right now, it hasn't. We had no clue what it was but I pray and hope it's nothing too serious.
As the eleven of them continued with their games, I smiled up at them as I admired how well they complimented each other as well as got along with one another. They reminded me of how the nine of my siblings and I use to be at their ages. The ten of us were close, as we still are to this day, just as them. Although we had our fights, as do they and any other normal set of siblings or cousins, one thing we do more often than fighting was confining in one another and finding comfort in each other, as well as assisting each other with any and everything. These kids were exact replicas of that.
While they continued on, I focused my attention back to the novel in my hands. It was an old novel written by Jane Austen in which she called Pride and Prejudice. The exact date of which the book was published was unknown to me, as far as my knowledge told me - it released sometime in the middle of the 19th century. Long before my time, I'm not sure how I managed to get my hands on a copy, but I did and I can say I do quite enjoy it.
The woman responsible for this book definitely had a way with words, I loved the many details she gave as well as the way she chose to use her words. To my knowledge, it was the story of a woman by the name of Elizabeth Bennett and how she learns to appreciate the differences between both shallow goodness and actual goodness.
As obvious as it was, I enjoyed reading, a hobby I developed years ago during the Jackson five days back when the boys would perform at night clubs while Randy was yet to join the group. It was my only comfort at the time, when they weren't around and as you could imagine it was pretty dull when the ten of us weren't together, sure I still had Toya, Randy, and Janet but even then, Toya was still trying to adjust to the fact that we had moved, Janet was much younger than me so there were things that I could do that she couldn't and Randy, well he found his own hobby which soon led to him being apart of the group.
