this past quarter, i was looking for a class to fulfill the third writing requirement at my school. i came across this class called "life writing" where every single piece that we turned in was autobiographical. this sounded like it could be easy because of the lack of research that was required however, it was one of the toughest classes i've had since being at santa clara. likely, because i had to revisit some things from my past that i had since buried or internalized completely. plus, it was a challenge to go back and write the way that i would if i were that age.
from this week on, i am going to post pieces from the class that i am open to sharing with others. the first one being this:
Little Bundle of Joy
...Around this time, I felt like something was missing. I then realized that it was a sibling, specifically a little brother. I asked my parents if they could have a baby so I could have a little brother. They told me that they would love to have a baby but that God could bless us with a healthy baby boy or girl. I was not pleased. It made me wonder what all this hype around God was if he couldn’t even grant a simple request like giving me a little brother. Now, I’m fully aware that a baby is not a simple request. I told them that if God really loved me, he would give me a brother. When my parents came home and told me they were pregnant a few months later, I think they expected me to be more excited. Well, I guess we were on different pages because I told them that I would not get excited until I knew whether it was a boy or a girl. Not too long after that, they told me they were having a boy. I was thrilled. When he was born, I remember being so anxious to finally see him. He was a huge baby so they had to do a C-section to get him out – all nine pounds and 15 ounces of him. In the process, he swallowed some fluids so he had to be placed in ICU. My grandmother told me that I could finally see him and I could hardly breathe. As we walked down the long hallways of the hospital, I held her hand and squeezed it tightly. Then we made it to ICU. When the doors opened, I saw tons of incubators with all of these cute little babies and I was peering around wondering which one was mine. Most of them were tiny, so small that they almost looked fake, especially because I had dolls bigger than that at home. We continued walking. Then we stopped. The nurse told me that this was my brother. Now, I was only five, but I was no dummy. This baby was white. There was no way it was mine unless my mom and dad neglected to fill me in or something. The nurse asked me if I wanted to hold it and I told her no and that I wanted to hold my brother. She insisted that this was him – this was Marcus. I then peered around and counted the other babies in the room that were closer to my complexion and there were three – three babies that were brown like me (I did not use the term black as a kid because I did not think that my skin matched the color of the black crayon so I thought brown was more appropriate). I told her that she had probably made a mistake and that my brother was supposed to be brown like me. This started to upset her – she got snappy with me, most likely because she was dealing with a snappy five year old. My grandmother sat me down and explained to me that my brother would darken over time and that when I was born, I was a lot lighter too (not that light, but still light nonetheless). Then she reminded me that my great grandmother was extremely light in complexion and that Marcus could be taking after her. I finally agreed to hold him and since then, I have not ever let him go.
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