Coming home means a whole lot of things...

Before losing Jeremy I would come home angry. I would listen to what my elders would say to me and very seldom would say anything back. I went into school shortly after segregation. I was not allowed to speak in classroom and dare not talk back you just listen, some were mean, some not, most the white teachers I had early on were mean and said hurtful things. I had one black teacher who was mean towards me, she later made a comment, all children are not like their mother. My mother had already told me about an incident where she went to the school and was going to beat this teachers ass because she threw an erasser and hit him in the head with it. I might have happened and then again maybe not. I don't know if they ever talked about what really happened that day. I don't know if that is why she was mean to me or not. I was walking down the hallway after lunch and she said look at her she look grown, and then she called my name. I was in the sixth grade and had some clogs with hills I begged mama to let me have while I'm Mitchell's department store. She and Ms Mitchell talked her into buying me them things. When I heard Me Smith say she look grown in them things and called my name loud enough to hear my feelings were hurt, I loved them shoes and begged mama for them, my first pair of hills and I didn't like pissing people off so I didn't wear those shoes anymore. Children are bullied by teachers and some teachers are mean and will say hurtful things about you or your mama. 

Some teachers were so pleasant to be around they  made me feel safe around them. One of those teachers was Evelyn Clemons, she was beautiful to me and I loved the way she dressed, she wore clothes like the people on soul train and two price suits like the women and a hippie style. My shoes I got was like those on soul train. Ms Evelyn Clemons would have loved them shoes. I had plenty more wonderful teachers who made me feel welcome in the class with them, Ms. Geneva Davis, she was sweet and I loved her smile, I don't know if I loved her or was afraid of her. I think both, she kinda reminded me of my grandmother, her personality was sweet but she was powerful, one day I had the hiccups and Rydell Dennis mimicked me and we both got in trouble, Ms Davis called us to the desk and I told her I had the hiccups and she said hiccup. She even sat there and nothing, pop. I cried silently with my head on my desk for upsetting her and getting in trouble and now mama gone damn near kill me and Rydell on my I hate you list. Mother Fucker got took away my record of no paddlings in the fifth grade. I been mad at Rydell every since. Ms Alexander was my favorite teacher, I was frightened when I went into the class with fear and trembling. The horror stories I heard about this woman, she was the wicked witch of the south but the only person I ever met was Ms Alexander, she talked different, she talked fast and if it had a look, I would call it slanted, she was bow legged and wore nice two piece suits in different colors not like colors you see in everyday wear. And pant suits on women who would have thought. Most of the time it was at church you see women in two piece matching sets or funerals when more people turn out and family coming in from out of town. 

I wonder did the teachers shop at Joe's or out of town. Because the prices in there is where you went if you had extra money to spend. I always frequented Ms Mitchell and you could always talk her down. But then I started working out of town and found clothes and shoes for me that were cheaper in Jackson and then when children came along and very little help. I began yard sailing and Salvation army in different places and clearance racks and they were happier to see me it seem than I was to see them. I was tired and bitter and married with a house full of children and still felt lonely and out of place in this world and like I don't belong here and I was sad and mad and at home I would yell things to my children and fuss at the man I was married to trying to reraise him and yelling at him trying to make him help out and do something like clean behind your nasty self and he saying I don't need you if you not gone pick up my clothes and I'm with him but don't love the man he is and how bad he make me feel about myself and because I'm weak and beat down with words I can't find it inside of me to love me. I don't know if another person really love me or just telling me what they want me to hear. So it's left up to me to love me some me or no one may ever will love me, myself and I. Being talked down on and never praised or very little praise and more criticism than love and understanding and now realizing I learned from early on how to be negative and dwell on the negative outlook of things, segregation some white teachers didn't want to teach blacks and some black parents didn't want their children learning from white people. History books were different in the south and the ones that had stories of black scientist and black historians were only in colleges and certain ones at that. The broader the school the more expensive it is. More literature from different places and more books to study from cost more money and makes a school better because it offers more.

We hide our reals selves in public because of Karen. Hell I might be a Karen to it all depends on what that other person diid. Let's just say I'm upset with you and I started a fight and then i used the police to get even. What if you beat me real bad or left me for another woman or was playing between my child's legs and I walked in. Would I try and get even or would I call the law to let them get even for me. What if the police use that badge to get even with others who they swore they would protect. Now Sam is a hard working man, Sam is a cop who killed Bob from the other side of the tracks, the man his wife had been cheating on him with. His partner begged him not to do it, but he pulled the trigger anyways shooting the guy in the head and then calling it in to her. And blamed her saying look what you made me do,  And he told his sergeant everything and confessed to the whole thing and promised it would never happen again and Sam get put on office duty or paid time at home to come down from the high and the low place he just went only to be given his badge and gun and told when he may come back or move to another department to work. But if I had been the one who did that to anyone at all I would already be in jail, or if he had been of a certain background of folks he would be in jail. He is out of control and he is not supposed to kill people, what kind of message that would send, you did the crime now do the time. But this is how it goes down when people of a certain color scheme are allowed to kill because they are out of control and get away with it. Go take a drink and cool off see you at work tomorrow, good job, you moving closer to sergeant, a couple more kills you may become a general. I will hold onto your gun and badge until you get back. 

Me yelling and yelling at a man because I really didn't even like him and he didn't like me but we were still together and we have to try and make it work, maybe the feeling that at were there for a brief moment will come back, what happened I feel even worse about him and it is ten years married and the love is fading away. And my son was killed and the love faded even more. 

After the death of Jeremy I realized all the attention Clarence was getting would now go to them, I saw them thru different eyes. Thru eyes of pain and that pain made me realize they were far more important to me than him and even if he did change his attitude towards me I might not love him because at this point I just want this muther fucker the hell away from me, and then my mama died after I was divorced and suddenly I'm not alone, I have five children, I can't take life for granted it is so short and we could lose each other in the blink of an eye so the way I came home from work changed and I tried to turn down the volume of others by staying away from them and their questions and comments and I don't want to say anything hurt anyone or do anything to hurt anyone because I have pissed God off and his wrath is upon me. So glad I let God go, it was making me delusional and not healing properly because he the one called God of the bible would fix this and give me back my happiness and smile and more than enough so I could live a better life and be there for my children all I have to do is believe and it shall happen. Nothing going to happen if I don't try, I can lay in bed all day long, but I try and get up and I do, yippee, still moving and thinking at the same time, whew, many stroke victims and accident victims and peole just born that way think about moving but can't. I pray for a cure from the scientist who help with the process of evolution and not those who think God gone get all the plastic waste from the waters that pose a threat to the earth. Just got so much God we don't care, we the chosen one, chosen to do work not sit around and tell others what to do, that's the masters way. Oprah said master dead time to start living again. 

This Out the door at five in around nine or ten many nights. Children already in bed and after walking around the house and checking on all my children I would then take my bath. 

I would walk back around the house some nights my children would get in the bed with me and some would get on the floor. I was always so happy to see them when I came home.