(taken from google images)
I woke up coughing to an ugly fog filling my childhood home in Brooklyn, NY. I could hear the sound of feet scampering around as my mother yelled out to my older sister, "Jenn, get Jamaris dressed!" Everyone was in a state of panic, and I was trying to understand why. My sister, in a hurry to put flipflops on my feet, told me our building was on fire and we had to get out quickly. I began to have trouble breathing. We all ran to the top of the stairs and prepared to make a run down and out of the building. My sister went first, encouraging me to follow her lead, but I couldn't make it. The view was too cloudy to see a thing, and my 5 year old legs were too inexperienced to make that kind of a run. I became scared and hesitant to move, and my mother began screaming for help. Just then, a fireman ran up the stairs, scooped me up, and got me out safely.
Standing outside on the street with my family and neighbors, I watched as my wheelchair-bound grandmother was wheeled out of the first floor apartment and more and more firetrucks arrived. Fire hoses were pulled out and water flooded the street as the firemen attempted to put the fire out from my building along with the several others that were connected to it. I remember the stream of water being so strong along the curb, that one of my flip flops got taken with it, and I cried out,"my chancla!" I got very cold and sad as I began to realize what was happening. I'd lost a lot more than my flip flop. I lost all of my belongings, I lost my home, and I lost what I would soon realize was my "safe place". That 3 story building on 34th street and 5th avenue belonged to my grandmother, and it was gone. We needed to find a new place to live. My life was forever changed.
(me as a child)
At first we stood with unstable family members for a short time until my mother and her then-boyfriend rented an apartment on 48th street. It was there that I can distinctly remember my mother "changing", or atleast my thoughts about her were. I began to see her as angry and not-so-loving. I was 7 years old when I wrote her two notes and slid them both under her bedroom door to find when she would get home from work. One note went something like this:
(recreated)
The other note expressed that I was going to run away because her anger was upsetting me so much. As you can see, I was beginning to have conflicting feelings about my mother.
By the time I was 8, my mother was single again and decided we would move to Staten island. I'd visited there many times to one of my aunt's homes, but living there was a whole different story. At that time, this borough had not yet diversified as much as the others. Till this day it's still significantly more racist, but at that time, I was going to schools where you could count the minorities on one hand. I lasted less than a year in my first school because, besides the fact that the kids bullied me for having curly, dark hair, my teacher made an example of me to the class as to why they should stay in school and get an education. She told the students that they don't want to end up like my "lowlife" family. My mother continue to move me and my around to schools and neighborhoods where we were unwelcome. But before leaving that first apartment, a lot more trouble had started for me right at home.
My sister, whom I was extremely close to, was beginning to secretly see an older man who was a friend of our mother. It wasn't long before my mother found out and my sister ran away to be with him. I had seen my mother beat my sister plenty of times though out my childhood. I distinctly remember a time back in Brooklyn days when I begged my mother to stop beating her with shoes. My sister had it hard with our mother, and the exposure of her affairs with this man only made Ma madder. Now, with my sister out of the picture, there was no one left for Ma to take her stress out on..except for me.
(taken from google images)
I was no longer the baby that my mother adored. I quickly became "the worst of all (her) kids". I had another older sister and an older brother too but they were long gone from the home before I was even born. So now, alone to live with Ma, I experienced her on a whole other level. She was always angry about something, and I always got the brunt of it. If she would drop and break something, I got yelled at. If someone pissed her off, I better stay out of her way. One morning, I was finishing my homework before school at the kitchen table. I didn't realize I'd done something wrong by not completing it the night before. When she noticed what I was doing, she began to yell, and, in a fit of rage, grabbed me by my hair, lifting me off the floor, and swung me around the kitchen a few times before letting me go to fly across the room. I was devastated and confused at why this was all happening, and so fast.
Another thing I noticed was changing was the attention my mother gave me. She never wanted to be bothered. If I showed her something I learned in school, or something I loved to do, she was uninterested. I had no friends at school, no sister at home, and had to be my own company all of the time. My only hope of socializing playfully was when family would visit and I could see my cousins. This is when things became much darker, though, at the time, I thought it was a ray of light. I loved watching wrestling, and I had all boy cousins. One of them, a teenager, would always watch wrestling with me. With my mother not paying any mind, he took advantage of the situation, and began to teach me to "wrestle". I thought someone was finally paying me interest. What he was really doing was molesting me.
(taken from google images)
(Stay tuned for part 2)