Leavin' home

Today's Poem:
Here I come
All six years of me
Leavin' Mama
Leavin' Daddy
Leavin' Mike and the rest
I am so scared

Today's thoughts:

I was so scared on the night of July 21, 1964. It was my first night at the Institute of Logopedics. Two days before,I had turned six and Mama had thrown the best birthday part ever!! The cake was chocolate and had little cowboys and Indians around its edge in a big circle.

But now, Mama had gone home with Daddy and Mike and I was with two strangers in a little apartment two hundred miles away from home. I did not the mileage, of course. I just knew Mama was gone.

Why? I know why now. But I didn't know then. I'm sure somebody try to tell me why. But how can a child that young understand leaving home?

I never wrote about my lying in that strange bed in that strange place with that strange woman trying to make me stop crying and go to sleep until now. I don't know how long it took, but I did.

I don't remember the next day, my first at school. I just remember that night, my fears, my tears.

Writing this, I keep thinking about the kids, the small ones of New Orleans. I keep seeing and hearing them cry at night far, far away from home.

Keep hoping.