Finally Free/Compilation of Poetry

I remember watching my mother working hard and sacrificing in order for us to have what she didn’t. Mama and Dad didn't know what it was to have decent clothes. Of all the many painful incidents in my life, the one I can't seem to erase from my mind is the day it was real cold outside with strong, blowing winds and ice on the ground. Back then, we didn't have all the modern appliances. Mama had to wash clothes by hand using a tub and rub board. No matter how cold, she had to hang them outside on the clothesline. I have never been able to erase the memory of that day from my mind. Mama was pregnant and the weather was bitter cold. She had a dress with patches where she had tried to mend the holes in the stockings so raggedly you could hem a mouse up in them, as she so often would say. Her shoes had her toes sticking out with barely any sole under the bottom. The coat she wore had no buttons and the sleeves were up to her elbow. After she finished donning her coat she picked up the wash and started outside to hang them on the clothesline. As she opened the door and stepped onto the porch, her foot went through a crack on the porch. That's the first time I saw mama cry. She was hurting and I was powerless. I couldn't do anything to help her. I finally realized why mama didn't want us to be like her. She wanted so much more for us than what we had. She couldn't bear the thought of us having to struggle. Though only seven at the time, I remember thinking that when I grew up I would make something of myself so that I could take good care of mama and dad. By now I can imagine what you must be thinking. A seven-year-old couldn't possibly think this deep. Well, they can, and I did. Primarily, because I had to. You see, mama depended on me even as a child. She called me wise and lucky because I was the seventh of her fifteen children.