I’m more myself now than I ever was.
When I look in the mirror. I don’t see the sad eyed-girl with low self-esteem. Or the abandonment of my mother. To have a second husband and leave us. That was her choice.

To leave her kids with their grandmother during their teenage years. (Never -mind my dead father).

As I bent down to tie my shoe. I let my mind wander back, to that girl, I used to be. On the floor of grandma’s corner house, faced down into the carpet. Hands over my face. I’m barely breathing. Tears falling out the sides.

My brother and his friends are teasing me for wearing the same winter hat.  Day in, day out I wore that hat. It was starting to be really hot. I still hadn’t put a comb to my hair. Let alone, look at that hot mess sitting on my head. So I did, what I thought most 13-year-olds do when no ones looking. I stuck a wool hat on my head and kept it moving. Until those boys snatched it off.

Then all that shame, all that matted-down nappy-shame ran over me. My younger cousin walked in the middle of my disgrace. In the middle of their full on the enjoyment of sheer bullying. She covered me with her love. Being all grown, at six years old. She wiped my tears. Pulled my body off the floor.

I made it. Past their scrutiny, past their foul words. Past the regret of not knowing how to take care of myself.

We’d become best friends that day. She too needed a mother. I cooked her meals, walked her to school. She introduced me to an old school beautician in our neighborhood. The rest is history
God is good like that.~your kindness sister Krissy Mosley