Herstory

 

She is now in her mid-80s tending from 

time to time to recall sometimes vividly 

sometimes faintly her evolving moments of

realization, how tormented she suddenly felt

in a strange bed with overwhelming thoughts 

of the enveloping darkness of death.The panic

felt when her mother took her to a daycare

operated by strange women in religious habit.

Her loneliness as a child and swift grasp

of reading and the magic inherent in language

as solace from a threatening world where once 

a young black girl with intent approached in an

inner-city alleyway and her spurt of assurances 

she was no enemy, her parents taught her so and 

she was spared. Her yearning for green spaces 

where to the child she was, parks were heaven. 

The sad sense of abandonment sent to a summer 

camp for underprivileged children. The ominous

doubt overhearing her parents speak of Jews and 

death camps. The horror she felt hearing her father

say he didn't want to die, but  he did anyway. Her 

resignation when her mother convinced a garment 

factory head her young daughter would be useful 

on the factory floor. The dreams she had approaching 

her juvenile years of meeting a youth like herself 

who would become her everlasting companion in life

and she did and nothing was evermore impossible.