Final Eviction Notice

 

"You've got to move"

Hearing Mother sing what sounded like a mindless ditty as I awakened as a young child meant little to me.  I assumed "you" represented someone she knew.  Perhaps it was one of the multitude of relatives who'd made the great "Route 66" migration from South to North.  

In search of elusive freedom, they'd have relocated from Jim Crow laws to more subtle city zoning ordinances and neighborhood covenants.   They migrated from sharecropping to earning a living doing day work, in affluent private homes or as laborers in Chicago's Stockyards. These relatives, however far removed or even friends of friends, would bunk in our apartment which my nuclear family had escaped years before.

Or maybe Mother had heard through the grapevine of a husband whose wife finally had suffered enough! His well-rehearsed laments, which were shared in a singsong dirge, described her ultimatum that he had to "Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more!"  Or perhaps, "Papa was a rolling stone,  wherever he laid his hat was his home" meant he'd left of his own volition.  No matter the myriad reasons, our living room floor supported many sleeping pallets over the years.

I pen this notice, however, to one of my grandsons, who still has some years left in the second decade of life.  For too long, he has been a recalcitrant, yet aimless traveler on planet Earth. But for goodness' sake, enough is enough!  I remember when as daughters-teenagers, Tracey and Courtney had me pulling my hair out by the patches.  One morning after they'd left for high school, I taped a note on the refrigerator door.  "Dear Young Ladies, why don't you run away from home now while you still know everything!  Neither of them responded to the invitation nor did their behaviors become more compliant. 

I write also to you, dear Reader, who may be a son, grandson, or male relative, by blood or adoption, who's had or is having trouble "finding" him or herself.  Feel free to amend the contents of this missive to fit your unique circumstances. 

"You must move! You've gotta leave the place you've inhabited for too long. My declaration cannot surprise you, since you've been enjoying a fully furnished bedroom for three-quarters of a year past the "two or three months" you assured me you'd need to "get on my feet."  Nor should you be surprised I'm fed up with your foolishness! I won't take the blame for "Your lack of home training," as  (Grand) Mama would put it."  You were 12 when you came to live with me, long after the formative years that sociologists describe.

Your stepfather's documented physical and emotional abuse, by the time you blew out 13 candles (12 plus one to grow on) from your birthday cake would legitimately cause your subsequent behavior.s  Unjustifiably, you suffered at the fists of a monster masquerading as a stepdad.  Choices could have been made if you'd told us, or subsequently participated in therapy. Instead, you chose circumstances and helplessness as your "go-to" bandages.  Afterward, you opined that everything and all things happened because of "what he did to me..."

I'm first to acknowledge the physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse by which your stepfather(!) scarred you indelibly before we learned of his sustained torture.  Ironically, he will be carried out of prison in a body bag that befits those who die before completing the life sentence they're serving.  His fate has no connection with his long-term abuse of you, though.  No, it doesn't, but we do rejoice that he's paying the price for the two brothers he murdered. 

You came to live with me shortly afterward and soon after that, I engaged an intuitive, Black male psychologist to try and help unravel cords that entangled your mind and suffocated your soul. 

Intensive weekly counseling failed.  I spent 52 weeks driving you across the city where you sat mutely with the veteran psychologist.  Reluctantly a year later, he conceded that he couldn't help.  You refused to talk, respond, react, or communicate in any way during the Thursday, 50-minute sessions.  If asked to describe you over the next nine years, I'd choose "aimlessly detached," for want of a more accurate description. You never seem to connect with anything or anyone.

Truthfully, while I would never minimize one scintilla of your pain, I can identify younger and more vulnerable boys who have similarly suffered, yet did not resort to harming others or themselves.  Remember, I once taught in a "mean-streets-on-steroids, inner-city high school!"  How? Only the Lord knows, (Grand) Mama used to hum part of a song with a "You gotta move" refrain, repeated endlessly it seems. She'd declare that someone (I never knew whom) had to move, had to move, had to move!

I've talked to (or at) you about the concept and practice of "choice" for over a decade now.  I've threatened, cajoled, and bargained, to no avail.  Yes, you've suffered horribly  No, you didn't receive the support, understanding, or counsel you needed.   Without a doubt, too many adults let you down, disappointed you, and disregarded your plight.  By default, we left you with a forced choice: Either decide to seek healing or succumb to a legacy that you still have the power to change! 

You made no decision, which forces me to make one for both of us.  So, like Mama sang decades ago, "You've got to move!" It's "tough love" for me and a chance to make difficult, life-altering choices for you.  Love and take care.