Authentic
___________
Authentic
An American hero
that's all you have to be
An Italian restaurant ad in pink Miami
and the bright pleas of a broken black poet
Images juxtaposed
with her crooked shoes
in a bedroom corner left
forgotten
A mother dies
and nothing remains
the same
except us
her children
Authentic
American heroes
that's all you have to be
____________
Notes:
[ I prepared this for court because a question was raised about my mother's will ]
My mother was born with the name Estackia N••••s in Puerto Rico.
My experience, as one of her 7 children, was the vantage afforded me of growing in the presence of a true American hero.
Without a husband or father in the home and without any other relatives to help, she single handedly lifted us out of dire poverty. she bought a house and afterwards, decided to finish her education. she had only completed the sixth grade, because she had to work to keep her own brothers and sisters from literal starvation.
She got a GED ( General Education Diploma) and afterwards, she began attending college, around the time that I was in high school, to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, specializing in child psychology.
Eventually, we came to Florida, and she bought another house, and seeing a rather surprising increase in property values, she purchased and sold some lots. In the subsequent years, she purchased and sold many more homes, but continued to do all she could for each of her children; those things she thought would benefit them most.
My mother, Estackia N•••••s, also known as, Carmen C•••••••a, knew Exactly Who She Was in the world. That kind of character, and the motive that compels it, doesn't fail in the last instance in her will for her childrens' continued security and beneficence.
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