The beginning of an educated heart

*Here is the continuation from the last post.  

 

We had caseworkers because the situation in my home was unusual. The caseworkers would come on a weekly basis. As we settled into the new living situation, they began to come on a monthly to yearly basis. The caseworker’s job was to ensure that we weren’t getting abused or neglected.

It wasn’t easy because we were uncivilized children trying to live in a civilized world. Any caseworker could see that my aunt and uncle were doing the best that they could, but they had to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth. 

Like a conveyor belt, the caseworkers were in and out of our lives, each week a different person, a man a woman—but never the same person as before and a new set of files. 

But despite neglect and abuse, the caseworker’s main priority was to make sure that we were enrolled in school. For some reason, my mother hadn’t felt it necessary to keep us in school. My brother David was in school but because my mother moved frequently, he did poorly and his attendance was poor too. As for my sister and me, school was the last thing on my mother’s mind.

But auntie and uncle immediately put us in school because the caseworkers threatened to take us all away if she didn't enroll us for the new school year. 

School 

And so they immediately put us in school. The school was P.S. 144. At the time, it was a block away from where we lived in New York. 

The first day, I had my black composition notebook and number two pencils, and I thought I was all that and two bags of chips. The day had come when I would be getting an education and learning, which was an eye opener for me because things that I was supposed to know I didn’t, but auntie spent her nights teaching us how to do our ABC’s and count our numbers. In rotation and because we were so close in age, all six of us would sit at the table as she helped us with the homework. 

But the uncivilized six required more of her attention.

The fondest-memory and the worst-memory was this homework assignment that required me to count from one to 1000, but I had to write the numbers out. 

Crying, snot dripping from my nose and defiant, I explained to my aunt that I couldn’t count that high and that it was too hard. Smudges marked the page and the pages were tearing due to the incessant erasing. 

It was unfair, and I hated that assignment.

And so 501 appeared, and I got  stuck. And she would politely tell me that all the numbers repeat. At the time, I couldn’t get it, and I didn’t understand. But, I can hear her say, “If you can count to 10 then you should know what comes next.” And so I would peek at the pages before and figure out the next series was 502. 

            Tired, angry and hurt, I hated every fiber of the assignment. I kept nodding off during the assignment, but auntie sat there with me until I counted to 1,000, and when I was completed with the assignment…she made me rewrite it so that it would be nice and neat for the teacher. "Your homework should look presentable," she said.

I wanted to explode! I said, “Buuuttt I can do it tomorrow,” she said, “No you will do it NOW.” And so I did, because it was too early in the morning to complain and bicker any more. I was tired and the sun was starting to shine through the curtains. 

To be continued…