“Broken Glasses”

When I was a child I saw many children get licks for breaking a glass. I never saw fathers get upset, but mothers would go overboard. I used to think that was real shit. My mother never beat us for breaking a glass, but she used to stare at you and quarrel about it. I used to stand there wanting to ask her, “You never broke a glass in your life?” then steups (suck my teeth), but I knew that would have cause the belt to come forward. For many years glasses broke accidentally by me and my siblings. The quarrelsome moments continued and then one day I said, “You never broke a glass?”

“You are too rude. Out of place to ask me that,” She said.

I wanted to say, that is not rudeness, but I shut my mouth.

One day when I was going to get something from the kitchen, I heard my mother talking and laughing with one of my sisters. As I stepped into the kitchen, my mother in her hysterical moment knocked a glass off of the kitchen counter. She grabbed for it, but it hit the kitchen floor. I stopped walking, opened my eyes wide as it smashed. I looked down at the glass, then I looked at her. A moment of silence took place and I said in my mind, “Oh what a heavenly moment.”