here

Things are different here in my father's house.

Take the kitchen, for example. For one thing, the refrigerator does not have a lock on it, so I can go in it as often as I please. Once inside, there are no names taped to the food, prohibiting me from tasting something that looks especially scrumptious.

Here there are so many rooms that I could lose myself. The living room is huge, and the chairs all seem to be on the verge of bursting because they are stuffed so big. This is a sense of comfort that is so discomforting to me.

Here the lights don't go off because the bill can't be paid. I don't have to climb on the roof to rig an electrical cord to a neighbor's outlet for a temporary debt that my mother will have to pay on her back. I can flick a switch, and the room will flood with lights so bright that it seems like daytime.

Here I'm not awakened by loud music or gun shots or sirens or arguing or sisters coming to beg for money, promising that this is the last time. I awake with the sun or the sound of a gentle voice urging me to rise and shine and greet the day with a smile, but I don't because I'm not used to smiling yet. Everyone around me seems excited about the challenges that a new day will present. That's another switch from the gotta-get-up-and-face-the-man blues that's so much a part of tan, red, brown, and black lives.

Here I go to church on Sundays, where we pray and sing and rejoice. Fat ladies in all of their finery come up and pinch my cheeks, oblivious to my impatient looks. Old men sharp as tacks in three-piece suits and hats surrender themselves to an intangible but powerfully real God. I was beginning to think that God had forgotten about us. That S/He had gone on to start over on another planet because things on Earth have gotten so bad. But looking into the tear-stained faces of the ladies, I know that S/He is still here.

Here I'm given choices. What would you like for lunch? Do you want to go to the video store? Would you like to have some kids from school over? Let's go for a walk, shall we? I've never been given so many choices in my life. And it feels fine.