Fifty years ago today
our young lives changed
forever
I was twelve
That morning my older brother knocked on my bedroom door and said
c’mon Ker, we’ve gotta go over to the neighbor’s
I didn’t ask why
As I walked out of my bedroom
a policeman walked out of my mother’s
and closed the door
I thought, what’s she done this time
My younger brother and I went to the neighbor’s
The only people who had befriended my mother
and seemed to enjoy her company
she could be the life of the party
and tolerated her alcoholism
Later that morning I spoke to a friend on the phone
she said she’d seen them take my mother away on a stretcher
and that there was blood on the pillow
Eventually I was told
she was dead
