Madea is mad funny. The line from Madea's Family Reunion when the judge offered the option of either being a prison mother of a foster mother came to me when I started to think about my family. I thought back upon all of the good times over many decades that we have shared. From family reunions, weddings, baby showers, and graduations to funerals, baptisms, random trips, and anniversaries; we get it poppin.
She don't know about us.
We Baptist.
We tear this place up.
-Joe
And not only is there just the immediate family, but because we did not let petty issues get in the way, I am proud to say I am in touch and close with relatives many generations and iterations removed. At one point, there was even a large contingent of foster children who were a part of the family as well. And several of them are still around and down. And thus I am led to reflect on the experiences and conversations of my youth as I stared upwards at those bold teens with some much on their hearts and minds, yet meandering through the system.
I think about whatever became of Eric, whom I naturally took a liking to because we shared the same name and he was dark-skinned like me (ahem) with a flattop to match. I remember he had a younger sister who went to my school and I always wondered how and why he was with our family and not his.
I think about Antwain and how he used to cut up the rug with his dancing skills. I remember his stay as a good one, but I also recall hearing rumors of his growth into a man and the alternative route he chose. I wonder if he is still on Nino Brown status or if the game changed him.
I wonder about the many boys who just were not trying to hear my grandfather's mouth and ran away shortly after arriving to Edisto Island. I remember looking out the porch one dreary day when one of them simply bolted through the back door and thumbed-it back to Chucktown.
I think back to the mid-eighties and how Marvin and Jeff used to be the illest DJs in town. How we used to live arcoss the street from the community center and would simply start a human caravan hauling milk crates of records across Highway 174 to setup for whatever wedding reception was taking place that weekend. I been told you, homie. I am hip-hop. (wink)
I think about Nathan and how he was an aspiring boxer. And how we once told me about my walk and how to distinguish myself.
I think about Hurricane Hugo and how everyone piled up in the big blue van and met us in Summerville at the high-school-turned-shelter.
I think about Greg and Stacy and the larger-than-life roles they took on as they came to symbolize the promise of the system. And how the Jap nickname took on its own lifeform. And then the car accident that nearly took Greg's life the same night the Harlem Globetrotters came to town.
I think about how those experiences helped to mold a small portion of how I am and what I represent. Of why I feel I can at least partially empathize with both sides of the fence; those stuck in the foster care system with no hope for a brighter tomorrow. For them, I scan through the mental images of my pre-teens and all of the things to which I had been exposed by at-rick youth before the term became the cool thing to say. For the families with not much to offer on the surface, yet still willing to take in youth with troubled pasts (as opposed to troubled youth - word arrangement does matter) and allow them to become a part of their families just because.
Love is many things.
It's varied.
One thing it is not and can never be is unsure.
-Maya Angelou
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