Mommy Wasn't There - A memoir in progress

On My Own: 6 Weeks and Counting

I came home from school to find a note that read something along the lines of: "I've gone to New York to work a private duty case. I will be back in six weeks." The letter, was singed by my mother who was a registered nurse and took live-in assignments to take care of patients in their homes.

So, what does a 15 year-old sophomore girl do when her strict Jamaican mother heads off to earn some serious cash? Host the house party of the year of course.

It was October 1990, I had a pantry full of dried food and a freezer full of meat. And I'm not talking about the freezer that is part of the everyday refrigerator. We had a 6ft standing freezer. As long as there was food and music, it was a guarantee that high school students will arrive.

The house was packed. Kids were every where in almost every room. My mother's room was 100% off limits. I am sure there was some form of drugs, alcohol and sexual acts going on at the party. I, however, was not high, drunk and I didn't wind up pregnant or contracted any sexually transmitted disease. I just wanted to make sure that my guest were having a good time and that I won the title of throwing the party of the year.

My best friend was my partner in crime. Nicole helped me with invites, cooking and clean up. However, her mom got wind of the party and came over and ...Shut. It. Down. I was shitting bricks.

"Please don't tell my mother. Please don't tell my mother," I thought to myself. Wishful thinking. My best friend's mother received a phone call from my mother a couple of days later asking if everything was alright at home and that's when I realized that life as I knew it was over.

"Your mother said she is going to bust your ass when she gets back from New York," said *Sharie.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Where the first words that came to mind. I had four weeks to get my ass ready for the beating of my life. I was certain my mother was going to kill me. Yes, as in take my life.

Part of my preparation was to leave the stereo on and keep the windows open during the day so I would be able to hear the music as I approached the house after I came home from school. Everyday I would get to the corner of 209-10 14th Ave and wait and listen for about five minutes. If the music was off that meant my mother was back from her trip and that I had a choice to either turn back around and never look back or go in and take my beating like I had been over the years when things didn't go her way.

Four weeks came and went. "Man, it's been six weeks. Where is she," I thought to myself. Another couple of weeks went by and the music was still on. Walking up to the corner of my childhood home to listen for the music became second nature.

Four months later the music was still playing and as I approached the house there was a note on the front door. Foreclosure. I had no idea what foreclosure meant but I knew what it meant when the sentence stated: "You must vacate the premiss by March 3, 1991." They gave me until my 16th birthday to get out of our home. Happy Sweet 16!

My heart went into straight panic. The lights and water were still running, as well as the landline telephone. Either my mother was still paying the utilities or back in the 1990s FP&L, Southern Bell, and the water company took a long time to shut off utilities.

I was confused, stressed, and had no idea what to do next. "What am I going to do with all of this stuff? Where am I going to live? How will I finish high school." These were the questions that ran through my mind everyday.

I called my older sister who resided in London, England to ask for help. "There's nothing I can do Tamika. I am not your legal guardian. Just make sure you stay out of trouble and out of the foster care system because they rape young girls there," Sharon advised.

So, I told no one. The school didn't know. My volleyball teammates had no clue. And when my mother's friends would come around asking where she was, I told them that she was at work or asleep.

People never questioned if I was telling the truth because they knew that as a registered nurse my mother did in fact work 16 hour day shifts. The only person who knew anything was my best friend Nicole.

On the nights I knew my mother wasn't coming home and I was lonely, I slept in Nicole's room, either underneath her bed or in her closet. I would wake up and get ready in time to make it seem that I had just come over that morning. I would either eat breakfast at Nicole's house or get free breakfast at school, as well as lunch. Free school lunch was easy to get, I just had to fill out this green form and forge my mother's signature. The only meals I had to worry about were dinner and weekend meals. 

There was plenty of food in the freezer, enough canned goods and non perishables in the pantry for me to cook. My Jamaican mother probably invented stockpiling because we had enough of every solitary thing a person needed to live if a nuclear bomb was to drop in the heart of North Miami Beach, Florida.

Clearly I had the food situation under control but my 16th birthday was coming and I had no idea where I was going to lay my head.

Everyday that I came home from school I thought to myself, "What am I going to do with all this stuff?" The house was a three bedroom, two full bathrooms, a full kitchen and a Florida room, or what some may call a den.

Jean had a closet full of clothes. Her sense of style was admirable, at least to me it was. She had great taste in clothes and she only purchased the best. A good portion of her wardrobe still had the price tags on them from Lord & Taylor and Loehmens. She had an addiction to shoes and had a matching pair for almost every outfit. I remember sitting in the shoe section of one store for nearly two hours while she tried on pair after pair, only to purchase one pair. I was certain that she was going to buy all of the shoes she had tried on.

The closet was just the beginning. Jean liked nice things. Big things. Our furniture consisted of the full living room set- couch, love seat, and a wooden coffee table that had a storage which held her hard liquor. Johnny Walker Red and Wray & Nephews Overproof Jamaican White Rum were her spirits of choice.

We had a wall entertainment center with large floor speakers at each end. Vinyl records, turntable, stereo system with dual cassette tape player and a collection of 8-tracks. My favorite were the vinyl records. Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, Al Green, Percy Sledge, Kenny Rogers, Rita Marley were just some tunes that were in heavy rotation on the 1s and 2s. Unfortunately, I knew I couldn't take them with me and I didn't even think about renting a storage unit back then, not that I had any money to acquire one.

In 1991, there wasn't a Craigslist for me to put an ad to let people know that I had a houseful of stuff to get rid of. There was no social media for me to say, 'house for rent' which would have saved my childhood home. Thing is I had no idea how far behind my mother was on the mortgage. It was only later did I find out that the mortgage was also under her boyfriend's name, as well as her nephew's. Her not paying the mortgage totally messed up their credit.

As a teenager I had no clue what not paying your house note could do to a person's financial credibility. As a newly abandoned teenager I had bigger things to worry about, like how in the world am I going to get rid of this houseful of stuff.

That's it! A yard sale!

The first week I sold kitchenware. There was barely any food left for me to cook so it just made sense for me to sell plates, pots, pans, eating utensils first. I made about $50. This was barley enough for a deposit for an efficiency apartment and I still had one month to vacate my home.