March 13th, 2018 7 pm
the quality or state of being strong, a good or beneficial quality or attitude of a person or thing
“It comes from within, not knowing it’s there until it holds you together and you feel it’s embrace”… Strength…
She was a teenager when she stepped back onto Canadian soil, at Pearson International Airport. Nobody to greet her or wait for her when she landed. Nobody to give her a hand with her single, but yet heavy, luggage. Nobody to bring her home. There was no longer a home.
Strength.
As the caring stranger demanded why nobody was here to pick her up, she was no longer listening to the questions being hurled at her. She had no answers but waited. She glanced around at people who lovingly embraced each other and either had a kiss or a hug from their family or friend who picked them up from the airport. She had no one. The kind grandmother, who wasn’t hers, said that they would gladly take her to where she was going. They took her to the person who was supposed to take care of her.
In the backseat of that car. She had no feelings. No thoughts. She sat frozen as the car whizzed by the almost empty road and dark houses. She didn’t see the beauty of the snow falling ever so slowly, onto the ground. She only heard hushed tones, of the grandmother angry that nobody had picked up this girl, in the middle of the night.
Strength.
They found her a place to stay. Low rent, in exchange for light housekeeping duties. Then they left, without a second glance.
Day in day out, after school and before going to bed, there were endless chores to be done, before she can be.
Pots and pans, dishes and laundry, every day. Even on Christmas break, even when she finished her part-time job in the evening. Ironing till 2 am, until she was up again, to prepare them breakfast at 6 before she went to school.
He was in a bad mood, and on the night when she was watching Whitney Houston singing at the Grammys, on television, while ironing the family’s clothes; He snatched the neatly folded garments and threw them across the living room, with madness in his eyes. He called her a bitch.
Then without a glance at her, he walked upstairs to be with his wife.
She left that house.
Strength.
Alone in the basement apartment that she rented from the kind people upstairs. A bed, a drawer, a closet. A window just above the ground, portraying the backyard that will become her fridge, when snow frost comes upon them. She laid on her bed with a futon so bare, she can feel the stiffness of the wooden planks beneath her.
Across her room is the bathroom, where she struggled to choose between shampoo or laundry detergent to bathe with. Which one would you pick?
Yes, laundry detergent. It was a great choice.
The snow has begun to melt, she can see the eggs and hot dogs in clear sight now. She hurries outside to claim it before the owners see them. No more cooled eggs and hotdogs.
She had to waste money now ordering pizza, and that didn’t last too long without a fridge.
Strength.
In that basement, she was at her happiest.
The portable heater which she turned upright, cooked the eggs and hot dogs forever. It took ages but still tasted good. She looked at her frying pan, which really was a square tin foil. With melted butter, it tasted heavenly.
Windows rattled in the brewing storm. She looked outside from the ground within and hoped that the power doesn’t come off. She’s afraid of the dark.
Strength.
At school, she borrowed money from him. He doesn’t know it was for food and rent. She was trying to make ends meet. He probably thought it was for something silly and frivolous.
Strength.
