​Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.  The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.

Might I say two thousand and twenty, instead of twenty-twenty for this new decade? The combination has me pause with the bookend-like appearance of both together.  Numbers aren't important I’ve been told, but emotionally I am affected by this transition. Lives ARE recorded by mathematical symbols: telephone, house address, social security, license plate, birth, death, credit cards.  Divisions of our existence are defined numerically with meaningful days celebrated by specific dates. Eligibility to vote, marry without parental permission, obtain a driver's license, donate blood, join the armed served, retire by requirement, become president, for examples, depend upon arithmetic.
    I turned twenty the April of my junior year at undergrad school;  my forty-five year old father died in May. Why couldn't I have known, decades ago, that forty-five was not old?  It sounded old when I hadn't lived enough years to, then, register to vote. As age nineteen exited, so did an ‘innocence’; life now also meant death.
    Recognition regarding the thirty-two years my mother had been a widow required a different perspective once I married and had offspring.  Without companionship, she alone educated her daughters, learned to manage financially, made weddings, sold a house, moved across the country, endured operations plus heart attacks and open-heart surgery, closed an apartment door daily to prepare meals for one, died from contaminated blood received during surgery yet never said 'why me'?  My mother watched annual numbers increase without a husband's gentleness, support, reassurance, yet projected only enduring unselfishness and consideration for her children. Numbers: her birth and death dates, years of widowhood, street address, zip code, total grandchildren.... Had this been me, would I have had that strength? Did she realize she possessed such?
    The 2019 calendars are crumpled into waste paper.  Time, I understand, really is precious. I will internalize how affected I am seeing two ‘twentys’ being written out, or staring at me from my wall calendar reminding me of my own number when I learned that loved one’s lives aren’t to be taken for granted. 
    But ‘exit 19' is also an age, and not just the now-obsolete calendar decade.  One's own life matters to an individual losing the title ‘teenager’: career and professional opportunities are ahead.  Twenty 'tells' each that responsibility is within view. Parental obligations to help offspring become independent, self-sufficient, and sensitive adults are abstract, general.  The shedding nineteen year olds seek identity, self-esteem, respect, an opportunity to be of value to humanity, earn a living, reproduce, share private thoughts with a person who'll trust each with his/hers.
    Numbers.  Class of '2024, sports scores, repair ticket, clothing size, body weight, digital pieces, price tags, speed limits, carpet footage, tire size, light bulb wattage, place in a waiting line.......

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    Daddy took the transparent acrylic pin from its wrappings and placed it in my palm.  He watched my expression. "A horse. Oh it's a horse I can see through. Did you know?  Can you see it's see-through?"
    He brushed his fingers gently over a limp strand of flaxen hair that had escaped from my pink barrette.
    "Can I wear it now?  Oh. I've had those pins that glow in the dark.  You know the ones you got me when the war started.  I loved sticking them under the light, then going into the closet and seeing the purple color they showed, but this is the best!  I'll love it always. A real see-through horse for my blouse.”
    From the movement of his lips, and his cheek dimple winking, I knew that he was only pretending when he said, sighing, "I guess it's okay to wear it right now."  His strong but gentle fingers slipped the sharp pin into my angora sweater, then fastened the clasp. No matter that the size was too huge for my small frame, or that its weight strained the wool sweater hairs, I was excited.
    I pulled my sweater outward, forced my neck down, and noticed the red mane was also transparent.  Daddy had gotten me Mother-of-Pearl horse buttons made by the button firm which 
gave him pay checks, and my mom sewed me a dress specially to use those buttons, but Mother-of-Pearl is pretty, shiny, pinkish, and not clear.  I could see my sweater's color right through this horse pin. 
    "Daddy.  If I wear a red blouse, will the red mane disappear?"  He didn't laugh at my question. I looked at his pale blue eyes and, as he often did, he looked right into mine then used an opportunity to quietly educate. 
    "Plastic.  It's a new, flexible material that will probably replace the bone buttons we use.  It's hard and durable, yet looks light..." His voice was pleasing, and he really was trying to tell me about an amazing inventive process but my mind only concentrated on my instantly loved horse-shaped pin.  
    I loved horses:  I painted them in oils, sketched them with crayons, rode them at the stables, shoveled manure to get an extra free hour ride, kept a real bit and stirrup on my sturdy red maple dresser, and fantasized owning one.  How did daddy always know what I wanted, since he bought me the paints and crayons, too. I leaned forward and hugged him, as only a nine year old can hug; he had the scent of Yardley after shave lotion.
    "Climb on," he whispered.  I put my tiny feet atop his shiny black leather oxfords, and we did the two-step into the kitchen so I could show my mom.  'Course, I thought, she'd be cooking, and doing all the busy things and might not take the time to notice, well, really notice, but this time she tossed a damp linen dishcloth over her shoulder and paused.
    "The future, dear?"  She shook her head at my daddy;  her snood seemed to bounce up and down.  "Think plastic will have any effect? We're not sure zippers will replace buttons on anything."
    "Mom," I whined.  "Look at my horse.  Who cares about plastic.  Daddy got me a see-through."
    So both looked into eachother's eyes, and smiled.  She did stop stirring soup or whatever she had been doing just to notice the wonderful pin.  And at least she didn't scold me for being too skinny to wear such a big thing, but I knew she'd use those starving-people-in-Europe to try to get me to eat more once dinner started.
    The pin wasn't cold, like metal.  It wasn't rough even where lines had been scratched into the material.  I couldn't bend it and it felt so pleasant and smooth to stroke. I knew I'd never use it for Potsy, even if I needed my luck changed, as my horse was too special to ever be dropped on cement during a hopscotch game.
    "Don't take it out for Potsy, as you did your mother's garnet brooch."   Daddy was a mind-reader, too! I'd just thought about that game. At least he never scolded me for opening up my mother's jewelry drawer, pulling out a sparkle pin that had a good, flat back, and tossing it on the sidewalk's Potsy game.  I didn't know the stones would fall out of the setting, or that the pin was 'real', whatever that meant since all things are real anyway, and I'd lost my sliver of slate.
    I tossed my head;  the barrette slipped out and my silky strands fell towards my face.  "Oh, Daddy. I'd never hurt my horse. Never."
    This was my horse to take care of, wear, enjoy, talk to, pretend with;  my daddy knew my dreams.
    My dad was forty-five years old when he passed away.  He didn’t see plastic molded into radios, sugar bowls, buttons, the 'future'; decades later, the National Museum of American History accessioned it.  I stood before the Pioneer Plastics Showcase in the Smithsonian Institution; my limp blonde strands were secured with pink barrettes and I could see bits of my reflection.  I touched the glass, leaving tiny imprints from my finger's swirls. I felt my feet on Daddy's shiny black shoes, moving in two-step tempo, and my hand moved to my chest as if to touch a large plastic horse-shaped pin.  I held back a giggle and confided to the shelf 'I never did get big enough for a pin that size.' I looked at its red mane, and the way the showcase-light made it even more see-through, and whispered “ Daddy some of my dreams came true.”

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    "Another holiday."  I spoke to my dressing table mirror as if it could comment back at me.  "More family gatherings, yuk."
    "Come help me set the table,"  My mother called upstairs.
    "Okay,"  I sighed with the dramatic sound only a teenager can effectively make. As I was descending the stairs, I noticed my mother using her foot to smooth a spot where the rug was showing wear, as if she could erase the flaw.  Then she brushed some hair from her forehead. Her brow was moist from steam of boiling water churning in cast-iron pots. She adjusted the webbed hairnet she called a snood. As she walked back into the kitchen, the backless slippers slapped against her bare heels.
    "Here.  Twelve."  My mother pointed to porcelain plates ready to be placed on a white, starched, linen cloth covering the dining room table.  Sunlight was streaming in the room's east window.
    "Twelve."  I muttered.  "Take three hours to clean up!"
    "What?"
    "Nothing."
    "What're you going to be when you grow up?"  I began to imitate relatives. "Are you boy-crazy now that you're a teen?  Aren't you sweet to help your mama like this." I passed remarks to each plate I placed.  "Oh, I'm so glad you've all come to celebrate everything with us," I addressed the table. "Of course I'm telling the truth!"  I crossed my fingers then started to laugh.
    "What's so funny?"  My mother appeared. Tears were streaming down her rouged cheeks from onions her hands had been chopping.
    "Nothing, Mom.  It's turkey isn't it?"
    "Of course!"
    With a pair of tweezers, she pulled extra hairs from the turkey's skin.  It was tedious. Onions were frying in preparation for stuffing to be made with bread already soaking in bowls.  Idaho potatoes, carrots, green peppers were on a kitchen counter. It was a day's work preparing this meal.
    "Why's it always here?  For everything." I stated rather than questioned as I collected silverware from a drawer.
    "I never grew up in a house, Lois."
    "So what difference does that make?"
    "I love having family in my home."
    "Even if you did mind, you probably wouldn't admit it.  They're not even grateful! Never bring you candy or flowers or anything to say thank you.  Never get up and help serve, clean up, do dishes, vacuum the rug."
    "Enough!"  My mother sounded disturbed.  "What's to help? I have my daughter to help me!"  She began to chop green peppers with a frantic motion.
    Then she shared her girlhood holidays' daydream where her own decorated dining table had family sitting around making conversation, feeling pleased to share with one another, appreciating a beautifully cooked and presented meal.  The reality of house, for her, was glorious, but the gatherings, to my mind, weren't. I couldn’t imagine a tenement where she had to walk up four flights of stairs, share a bed with her sister, have no bathroom in the apartment but use a common one at the end of the floor’s hallway, sleep on a fire escape in the summer just to escape the indoor high temperature.  I hoped I wouldn’t have to hear that tale anymore. Didn’t sound like it could have been true even if she really never lied to me. 
    "Why can't relatives really care about one another without passing judgment or airing petty jealousies?"
    "Use the stemware goblets, Lois.  And stop complaining."
    "Complaining?"  I got defensive.  "I just don't see why someone else can't invite US and we can be guests without all the work.  What'd I say that was wrong?"
    A heavy sigh emitted from my mother's chest.  I knew her sigh meant 'end of discussion' and decided not to push her to a hostile state.  I stuck goblet stems between some fingers so more could be carried with one trip, then continued to set the table.
    "Gobble, gobble," my daughter pretended to sound like a turkey as she adjusted the tablecloth.  "How come we always have something here, so I get stuck with setting up and helping you put stuff in the dishwasher, and everything?"
    I grinned as I handed her those goblets that once belonged to my parents, and one day will belong to her.  Then I remembered those long-ago gatherings that seemed shallow and useless; they were a sharing of family.  Around my mother's table, people bonded, exchanged familiarities, were enthusiastic about upcoming celebrations, were comfortable enough to even speak of petty jealousies, quietly felt grateful for reaching another season.  To tell this to my daughter would sound like a lecture. I knew she'd understand one day. "There," I pointed to large linen napkins, somewhat stained from a generation of use, "use those; they were also my mother's."

©1996 The Jewish Press
reprinted 2007 Clear Mt.
​

The last time I wrote a story listening to Enya's Flora secret, I cut my fingers and allowed the gushing blood tell a story of how I was once told to always keep shut even if I was passing through pains. I didn't understand the idea behind leaving myself in a dark room and letting out a loud scream in search of myself and my shadow and my gut and my emotions until I heard Demons screamed for help for their neighbors. I looked at the broken windows always in the night, I allowed myself to listen to the tickling of the clock after the stories told by Flora. I understood what it means to be a lonely boy, caged, I understood that the glory of the sky is blue but in the aura season of what we become trying to infuse the amount of energy we have into what we strive to get, the more we try, the more mean we are to getting burn into freedom and the thought of the truth hurts us into believing that we are living. Boys like me burn too quickly.
My door has written down rules: one, I must not walk pass it with tears. Two, I must not allow my feet get quake while passing through and, three, I must not let my lips smile or let my mouth speak vanity else, it will punish me; that was what mother said.  I don't want to remember being a boy again, I don't want to remember my childhood anymore. I don't want to remember having to walk in all the streets in Aba hawking what I can't remember their names. I don't want to remember being molested by a boy of my age. I don't want to remember painting some one like me in the evening of my father's death. I painted him in the glory of the sky in that house on the other side of the street. I allowed him to wait for his burning mother to scream out loud. I allowed him to look at his sister get raped. I allowed him swallow hard the sad song in his throat, I allowed him masturbate, and make love to himself. I allowed him see his fate as it gradually faded into darkness. I allowed him to search for his shadow in the dark. I was never taught how to sing a good song so, I allowed him to remember only the dirge written in a country yard. He only sang "faded" by Alan Walker and Whiz Khalifa's "see you again". I guided him to the path of the song he must listen to because songs define us more than food. I painted a monster like me, I painted a walking ghost like me and allowed him to roam the street of nothingness.
When you allow yourself recite Jo Nketiah' poem and listen to the rhythm of your heartbeat, remember to name the streets in your body like the streets in your town. It was where I began to hold my names to the burning grasses that I remembered there is someone called God. Someone that has a name better than us but Africanism  taught me how to hold my mouth into different places and make clothes for my naked soul. Boys like us burn angrily.
You see, I won't go back to that song again, I won't cut my self again with scissors or blade. Every darkness counts, every loneliness is numbered, every demon counts my middle words like they count the stars. I won't burn again but be the fire, I won't say those things I can't remember as a boy learning his first word. Patriarchy told us that boys don't let out their weaknesses, the society in her folds of understanding declared boys as heroes whose eyes must not shade tears no matter the circumstances.

I won't tell you how I survived pains and depression. I won't tell you how I survived locking myself inside my dark room. I won't tell you how many demons I communed with. I won't tell you how they became voyagers In my body. You will get mad at me for allowing them in but sin tastes differently, yes, some sin taste like coffee and some, like menses' blood, and  some feel like a finger in a woman's vagina; Warm and calculative and sensional. I won't tell you  how I survived heart break and how it feels to stand aloof like a boy and look the sun in the face and it shies away. I am a boy birthed in sadness, groomed  in sadness and lived in sadness. A lost boy looking for who would find him. I don't know what happiness tastes like, no, maybe you will tell me when next we meet. I won't teach you how to make love to yourself not now that the angels are home from their Pilgrimage. Till I find out how to love myself again, you won't know that boys are flames of fire in search of freedom.

Tell mother that standing on a long distant road between her and my fate is the easiest way to learn the act of endurance. I'm not afraid to die but I won't die now until I'm a hundred and twenty. Tell her that if tomorrow meet her in the kitchen and i was not there to make her feel like a mother that I tried to come home but failed myself. She should know which way to follow, she should know which way to paint more of the rainbows than the others. After this, I will honestly let my kind follow these paths perfectly. Boys like me are rare to come by, boys like me are full of agony but the world said we must not cry out even if we are dying because we are boys and not girls.
A friend said it is not good to watch horror films alone in the dark. So each time I want to watch this horror movie in my dark room, I invite my  sister, my little sister to watch with me. I'll make her sit down opposite the television perched on the wall of my room. I'll open the red and black curtains and lock up every where that light could penetrate from. Once I start the film, I'll stuff  her mouth with clothes and let her do the screaming for me. I usually leave the terror and fear in her eyes not in my very eyes. This is how I remain sane for some minutes until I return back to myself. Mother still hasn't found out about this and her calmed spirit followed us almost every day. The day she wanted to see what happened to her daughter, I hid my little sister in the wardrobe before she came in. I told her that she had gone to the toilet. I lied to her even when Father Mbanu told us during Sunday school that all liars shall burn in HellFire. She could not wait for her daughter  because she knew my little sister spend  time in the toilet. I was happy that she left in seconds and never came back. The drama ended after that day...

These days, I'm always on the look out for miracle. In case you see any, my door is always open to welcome you. The truth of the matter is, I don't really understand how all these started but I know the ashes that seek for freedom are not far from the bodies of men like those that got burnt searching for what genocide mean. We're boys, we're here.

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Colleen J. Pallamary is an author, speaker, copy editor, freelance writer, and crafter. She has published three books, one fiction and two non-fiction works which are all available on Amazon. Her writing has been prominently featured in Ocala The Good Life Magazine and many other local publications. She frequently lectures on the topic of scam prevention and is an AHA Certified BLS/CPR Instructor. For more information please visit http://www.colleenpallamary.com. 

Her short story Heroes was written for and about her two young grandsons who she is helping to raise. She believes that speaking from the heart is the best way to nurture and teach loved ones as they grow into adulthood.

I grew up in an Ozzie and Harriet World
Where Father Knows Best – except mine wasn’t there
And Mom struggled to put food on the table and certainly didn’t wear shiny high-heeled shoes to vacuum and clean.
As the oldest of four I had nowhere to turn for advice and counsel
I looked instead to TV for some kind of male role model and imagined what it would be like to have a paternal guiding force in my life.

Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor
And Zorro slashed the air with his gleaming sword helping hungry peasants survive during difficult times.
They became my heroes every week – like clockwork I knew I could depend on them to be there.
Any yet I always wondered what that would feel like to have someone in my corner willing to listen and help during turbulent times.

Eventually a new kind of hero emerged on my TV screen. Barnabus Collins hid in Dark Shadows and Angelique wove her magical spells as an empowered witch fighting for her rightful place amongst the supernatural forces rampant in the Collinswood mansion.

I watched Mary Tyler Moore toss her hat in the air letting young girls know they could really make it on their own while Marlo Thomas embraced That Girl telling young women that they, too, had value as members of a changing society. Together these trailblazing women broke the chains of preconceived notions inspiring others to acknowledge their own self-worth. They became my new TV heroines.

I’ve turned to TV many times since then, still pondering the same questions from so long ago
And realize that the role models I searched for don’t exist, at least not in my world
And my definition of family, as I knew it, is not the same.
But fate and life have a strange way of intertwining and changing perspectives.

I’ve come to realize that my young grandsons look at me as their role model and pay no attention to the garbled voices on the HD screen blaring in front of them. Instead we sit and talk about the realities of everyday living and I continually emphasize their value as human beings especially during difficult times.

While I try to instill certain values and examples in their lives
I am honored and blessed to help them grow and as time goes on, they can be role models for each other as their world changes and they need to adapt.
They will know how to value and appreciate each other as family and brothers in every sense of the word
And I will smile and know my work is done when they become the real-life heroes in my life and they set examples for others to follow when its their time to lead.


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