About 17 years and 34 weeks ago, give or take I swore off brown liquor. With the exception of the shot of Henny at my best friends wedding I have pretty much held up that oath. You see I am not anti commitment, I am relationship wary. I know that Mario and I used condoms 17 years and 34 weeks ago. Even though I was out here on the streets wilding out and pretty much risking death every night, I was on the tail end of that behavior. I was also not on chemical birth control.  I didn’t want to be pregnant so I actively tried to not get pregnant while fucking. This is how I know we used condoms. Somehow though at the end of that night of Southern Comfort and Henessey, the egg from my ovary and the sperm from Mario’s testicles would meet and create Clyde.

 

December 13, 2000 Clyde was delivered and the woman you’ve met here began.  Many things have happened in the past 17 years to make me who I am and Clyde who he is but it all started with that delivery at 2:22pm.

This was the third birthday that Clyde has been out of the house. They don’t get easier. This was the first birthday that he was in a residential facility. His placement in the residential facility was complicated, and his ongoing residency is even more complicated.

Today though I want to talk about the positives, because they do exist. Even in the ongoing hell of our lives of separation, there are positives.

His current placement in the facility is in a house with 3 other children with special needs. There are four of them in that house on that huge sprawling campus. As placements go this is one of the best locations for him.  I’ve had to admit over the last 3 years that my isolationist tactics weren’t necessarily the best for the kid. I am an overprotective mother. I sheltered him from pretty much everything out here in this world from a place of fear. That includes siblings.  Clyde is going to be an only child from my end.  Clyde is also not likely to ever have a relationship with his older sister, Mario’s daughter.

It took Clyde living with the former foster parent to see that he needs to be around other children.  There are things being with other children that benefit him.  He’s a better kid, which frankly is unfair to all those other kids out there who aren’t my Clyde.  He was already the best of the best now he’s out here on the streets Serena Williams with a baby in the uterus winning a Grand Slam slay.

During our visit yesterday a steady stream of staff came to his house to wish him a happy birthday. No fewer than a dozen grown assed people made the trek to the last house on the left – literally he lives in the last house on the left – to wish Clyde a happy birthday.  It was cold as shit yesterday and some of them walked. One woman was on her way home and said she came back because she didn’t want to leave without telling her favorite hello and happy birthday. This woman could have missed her bus, and had to wait one hour fourteen minutes for the next one but giving my Clyde a hug was that important to her.

In 17 years Clyde has never given a fuck about his birthday. He still doesn’t.  He doesn’t understand all the fanfare. He’s just out here living his life and folks do extra on this one day and he’s ambivalent.

The rest of us get it though.  We understand the celebration that must be had because this amazing human being exists. We celebrate the fact that we have the fortune to be in his presence. Some of us, like his mother, understand that on a cellular level and take every moment to heart.

I can’t say I was jaded with the mundane of trying to get the kid up and out on a school day to take the school bus….I will say though that I appreciate it more because it was taken from me.

Every moment spent with my child is augmented because I don’t have spare moments theses days. It’s a two and a half hour, 2 bus 2 train ride to see him now. It’s a 4 minute drive from the gate to where they pick me up to the last house on the left where he sleeps. I still have the worst anxiety ever making that trip up.  Even though I am flying on my emotional high from time with the kid I still have to convince myself to not step in front of one of those high speed cars racing down the highway while I wait for the bus to take me away from the campus. I still have to deal with waking up to a house that is too big just for me and seeing a bed made and a room full of his things that he is not using.

On days like yesterday though, seeing the impact he has on others that fight is slightly less arduous. Only a little though.

When I get to observe how my Clyde, ever the dominant, runs shit I have to smile. I used to think that he was just so handsome and charming that it was just the female nature of the girls he inspired to wait on him hand and foot. When I see him in his current placement though I understand it’s not the women, it’s everybody.  Clyde has trained his staff [98% of whom are men] and peers to take my coat when I enter, retrieve my bags which will have clothes or snacks, fetch me a beverage and give me my favorite seat if he sees me walking up the driveway. If he is in the back of the house and doesn’t see me, and walks into the room, they all snap to attention as if they don’t want to disappoint him when he arrives. I am always amazed to watch this process. I am no longer surprised though, it’s Clyde after all.

The staff is always amazed at how I seem to be the only person to bring out aspects of his personality and behaviors. I often have to remind them that Clyde and I are always going to be connected even if I’m not there everyday. We rode solo with Bonnie in tow for quite some time. We weren’t perfect, far from it, but if we know anything…we know how to hold one another down and keep each other in check.

If you doubt it, that even King Clyde can keep me in check….you might not be a parent. If you are and you still doubt it, I will just say you’ve never met Clyde.

On his next birthday he will be of legal majority. 18. Even though his special needs will require constant supervision and management, on his next birthday my son will be an ‘adult’.

With the exception of the last 3 years which were stolen from me I don’t really know where the time went. It seems like yesterday they were putting him into my arms for the first time and I told him how happy I was to meet him and asked him why wasn’t he a girl.

Our birthday dinner last night was chicken Ceasar salad. I even got Clyde to eat a couple forkfuls of lettuce. It was a good day.

 

Aphrodite Brown