twenty-six letters

o1: aurora

au·ro·ra
əˈrôrə,ôˈrôrə/
the dawn

letter one of twenty six

My momma always told me I was a blessing to be had.

Aurora James was an uneducated black woman who ran her mouth to the wrong people for the majority of her lifetime. She constantly was doing the wrong thing. Everything my momma did ended in an altercation between her and grandma. Every week her and momma bickered about things like heat and water bills.

But the worst argument was when momma was twenty six. She got pregnant with me back in 1961 when she was messing around with my daddy after dusk.

She'd say that the moment the lights were out and the sun went down, that was when the worst things always happen. In the darkness of night.

Grandma stopped speaking to momma.

She gave birth to me in a tub. It was a rather large, deeply set bathtub, so this seemed to work somewhat conveniently. My daddy couldn't afford a hospital visit even when he combined all his and momma's wages, so they had no choice but to cut off a few amenities.

Labor lasted for twenty six full hours. The first half was all cramping and whining, but the second half was all screaming and crying.

Hell, my momma screamed so loud the neighbors called the police on her and daddy.

When they came, my momma was still screaming. Daddy didn't know that Mr. Johnson had dialed the police, so he didn't hear the knocking on the door when they arrived.

They broke down the door.

They mistook momma's hollering for a misdemeanor and cuffed daddy right when my head was peaking through. The uniformed men on scene pushed daddy out the door and left my momma to birth me by all herself in that cracked and chipped bathtub.

She didn't cry because of the pain after that.

She told me that my temperature was low when I was born. They had used cool water in the tub to ease momma's sweating, but she refused to believe that that was the reason why my skin was cold. She held me to her chest and cried as morning crept upon the dark confines of her run-down studio apartment.

I didn't cry.

She said that because I didn't make a sound, and because I didn't shed a single tear, she cried for me. Her stream of tears made up for the ones I lacked. That was her sacrificing herself to me she'd say. That a woman who can cry for someone else had the utmost love for that person.

So as the sun set in and momma cried, we watched the sunset together. She chanted daddy's name over and over, praying that he'd hear it from the jail cell and come running to see their new baby boy.

But he didn't.

In fact, he didn't come back for a few years.

Not until I was six did he make his reappearance, even though he only stayed in jail for one night. So until then, I took care of momma. I did it all because she was the one who held me to her chest when I was just a few seconds old, and she was the one who cried for me when I couldn't. I took real good care of my momma because I knew she would do anything for me and I would do the same for her.

That was the one constant in our lives, each other.

Her love for me was unconditional, and the amount of love I carried for her was just the same.

I stuck with momma always, and no matter what I looked out for her, even when she was wrong. That was what true love was.

So me and momma lived alone together for six years. And in those six years I took care of her, even in the darkness of the night when bad things lurked.

Bad things like daddy.

And I kissed her head in the morning and helped to clean counters during the day because I knew she would appreciate the act of kindness and love me more for it. We laid with each other and bed and cuddled under the ratty old sheets.

She held me to her chest and told me she loved me always, and I did the same.

From dusk until dawn.

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4/16/17