Minus One

I come from an extremely large family. On my mother’s side I have/had three uncles and 4 aunts. On my dad’s side they’re 16 total including my dad. 8 boys and 8 girls. And all his siblings are still alive; alive and well.

I text my family on the 19th reminding them it was the  6 year anniversary of my best friend Heather’s passing. She died of breast cancer or should I say complications of breast cancer on June 19, 2012. I was so sad and filled with melancholy; I couldn’t get it together. I had no motivation to get ready for work. My happiness seem to be swallowed into a black hole.

Not moments after I sent that text, my oldest sister text me and told me that my uncle passed away. My uncle on my mother’s side, my mother’s brother. My mother had lost yet another brother, minus one. I wasn’t sad because I lost my uncle, I hadn’t seen him in years. I was sad for my mother colon sad because she had lost , I had seen him in years. I was sad for my mother, sad because she had lost yet another sibling another brother.

When tragedy strikes in my family it feels as if it’s always on my mother’s side. It’s always minus one from her side. I look at my mother and I see the strongest woman ever! A woman that has had so much tragedy and heartache; but she still standing strong!

My grandmother, my mother’s mother, passed away when my mother was only 17 years old. Her dad passed away when she was maybe 27 or 28. My Aunt Lolo died of heart failure in the middle of my other aunts floor at 3:48 a.m. in the morning. She was my mother’s sister. Tragedy after tragedy and still with all of the Minus Ones, my mother is a soldier.

When you come from that good of a seed; how can you not grow up strong and prosper with great lens? How can you not want to make your mother proud that’s had so many – ones make the best of what she’s been dealt? How do you deal with your mind as ones?