a brief memoir about indestructible forces

We were poor people. My mother didn’t work, as she was busy raising me (and my sister once she was born in 1983). My dad has never not worked, that is to say I don’t know if he has ever been an unemployment benefit recipient. I only know my dad has always gone some place to earn money, whether he had to hit the pavement, or a hitch a ride. I lacked an awareness of social/economical class, I think mainly because my parents didn’t complain in front of me about scant money; plus, I had really awesome toys, and my clothes were always clean (washed in Tide, for fuck’s sake).

Our family of four moved from Huggins Road in Flint, to Davison Road in Lapeer during the summer of 1984. I began kindergarten at Elba elementary that September at the late age of six. Had I been born on December 1, and not the goddamned second, I wouldn’t have been a reject the previous school year. My mother was furious over the matter, by the way, arguing that I was smart enough to be in school, and the decision to exclude me because I was born one day past the cutoff would only put me behind. She hoped everyone was fucking happy. So, I attended a pre-k program called Tot-lots, or something equally lame—Tater Tots for all I care. We learned fuckall, just molded clay and drew pictures. One day, I was drawing a picture for my mother. I used all the prettiest colors of Crayons to form perfect hearts on yellow construction paper. The stupid bitch sitting next to me asked if she could draw a heart on my paper, and because my mother was raising me to be a nice girl, I begrudgingly allowed her to draw a green oblong heart. “It’s all wrong,” I shouted. Then I stood up, ripped the picture in half and said, “you ruined it, you idiot!” Both of my boyfriends, who were both called Patrick wouldn’t speak to me after my outburst that day. Oh! My first break-up! Nuts to those losers.

But I digress.

We’d moved to Lapeer, where my dad had taken employment at a plastics factory called Trayco—they manufactured bathtubs and showers. For Christmas one year, my dad gave me the models for a standing shower, and a bathtub, perfectly sized for my Cabbage Path Kids. It was pretty neat, within a couple of short years after moving to Lapeer, we were straight up middle class, and Dad could afford to take us all to Tawas, or Port Huron for a long weekend every summer. I was seven years old when I recognized we had previously been poor. Coming to the realization that your dad is a human being who works hard to make your childhood more comfortable than his own had been is a poignant one. And the meaning of a dollar was never lost on me. My dad spent a lot of time talking with me when I was his little girl, teaching me with words and by example. Not once did I ever see my dad pull a credit card out of his wallet. To this day, my dad will say, “If I don’t have the money in my pocket to pay for it, I don’t need it.” Funny, just recently I told my dad that when I’m published, I’m going to share some of my money with him, or buy him a present. He laughed and said, “I don’t want your money, Kindra. I’m not the one earning it.”

We were poor a second time upon the divorcing of my parents after eleven years of marriage. Well, my dad wasn’t poor, only my mother—Tara and I by association. Custody was never disputed for reasons I will not disclose publicly at this time. If I recall correctly, my mother was able to keep our house for a year, after which point, my maternal grandparents moved the three of us into a trailer park in the middle of goddamned nowhere, about an hour from Lapeer. This place was a colossal dump (good looking out, Grandma and Grandpa). Like, don’t drink the tap water kind of dump. Thank fuck we only suffered there for two years. My mother worked hard to get us off welfare. She worked as a motel housekeeper, and later on as a third shift shop rat making car parts. Recognizing her determination to provide for my sister and me, her determination to better her own life was another one of those poignant moments for me. My mother is a fighter. Even when she’s giving up. My mother…I swear she’s lived a thousand lifetimes.

Both of my parents are indestructible forces.

 

This post isn’t about money. Or the lack of money. I hope you all know what I’m saying here.