“ Memories” by Carla McCanna
I always go back to the memories. The bad ones. When I was a kid. The unfairness and the cruelty. I remember thinking to myself Why me? Why them? Why us? These questions would haunt me forever. I would cry in bed every night for the names and mean things done to the people that I know and love. It hurt real bad. But I couldn’ t do anything about it. None of us could. But one day, something horrible happened and it struck everyone like lightning. Even if you wanted to stay strong it broke all of us, even my Mama and Papa. Someone that we all knew real well was killed. He was framed, by who we all thought were his friends, and killed after the trail. They would do whatever it took to break us. Just because our skin was a little darker than theirs we had to work and sweat and die. But that night helped me to grow stronger and follow my heart and believe in what is right. When I was a little girl, my family was fortunate enough to own our own land. It was beautiful, peaceful land. Unlike some other fellow we knew that sharecropped and would get cheated by their landowners. We would feel bad for them. My Mama especially, for she would try to get them out of those situations whenever she could. My Mama was a caring, brave woman. I try to be just like her. After living through segregation all my childhood, I decided when I was old enough I would try to change the ways of the South and make it okay to be different. A week after I turned 22, my mother died unexpectedly. That was hard for my family, but my dad took it the hardest of any of us. He just sits in his room and gazes out at the big cherry tree in our backyard. He occasionally asks for my mother as if one day she will just walk right through the front door again. I didn’ t know if I should be worried for him or just let him be. I stuck by him though and cooked for him, washed his clothes, went shopping and helped him with the cotton. One day, when I came in from taking the clothes off the drying rack, he called me into his room.
“ My Cassie-girl,” he said, his voice raspy yet firm,“ you need to leave. Do as your mother used to and raised you to do. Help people.”“ But, Papa,” I replied. I was worried for him, and he knew it.“ I’ ll be fine. They need you. Do it for your Mama and me.”“ Okay,” I whispered quietly. I kissed him on the forehead, and hesitating at the door, I looked behind me. My father’ s head was turned and staring out the window again. I knew that bearing my mother’ s kindness and attentiveness to others would be hard. But I had to, it was time I did something with my life. I wanted it to be okay for people to be themselves and to eventually except themselves and others. I knew that