When I got the idea for “Living Right”, I wasn’t quite sure where it came from. I wanted to do a younger person, older person relationship drama with a little religion thrown in there, but after I wrote it, it felt like something was a little familiar to me personally.
It made me think back to my own mother, Gladys Reaves and what I learned as I became an adult. Mama, as we affectionately called her, left our father when we were fairly young. I was eight and my sister Carol was ten. she took us from Chicago to her hometown of Hopewell Virginia, but that didn’t work out as planned for very long so she brought us back to Chicago. It was tough for her. She was still young, in her thirties without much money or shelter. We bounced around a bit, but never once was her love for us in question. To keep us off the street she took the help of the older ladies she met along the way. Most of the ladies she befriended were nice, but one lady in particular, Mrs. Smith, had an agenda.
Mrs. Smith is no longer with us so I’ll tread carefully, however, the truth is the truth. I won’t say Mrs. Smith hadn’t been kind to mama because she did help us in our times of need; bringing food, loaning money and at times being a shoulder for mama to lean on, but as a youngster watching, I noticed things about Mrs. Smith, subtle things, that made me uncomfortable. I was a perceptive kid, feisty and spoke my mind about it to mama, but she wasn’t ready to hear me.
I vividly recall one weekend morning I was in the kitchen of our modest tenement, frying eggs for breakfast, Mrs. Smith happened to come over with bags of food which she did often enough. She wanted to prove that we were starving; she wanted to save the day. This particular morning, seeing mama’s 13 year old boy frying eggs from a carton she hadn’t given, remarked, “What are you doing making breakfast?!” almost with a bit of sarcasm in her tone. She was obviously stunned that I was making breakfast without a contribution from her. It angered me so I ignored her and flipped my eggs over. I was not friendly to Mrs. Smith.
Many years later, when I was all grown, I believe mama was becoming suspicious of Mrs. Smith’s true intentions. By this time, mama had found a very nice apartment in the city and was able to afford nicer things, like a nice rug she’d been wanting. Mrs. Smith came over to the apartment, her first visit there. Walking through the door she looked around, but never commented on the apartment, but told mama, “You’re moving into one of my buildings!” She had said it with such vigor and authority, like mama was a child and couldn’t find a decent place on her own. Mrs. Smith had become little more than a slum lord, having bought buildings in neighborhoods we didn’t care for, and on top of that, mama discovered through a mutual friend that Mrs. Smith had made a comment about the rug, saying to the friend, “I wonder how she could afford a rug like that?” Afterwards, their friendship was never the same.
Ultimately, Mrs. Smith was the older woman that took my struggling mother under her wing, but wanted to keep her there. Mama was scared and insecure at the time, recently separated with two children. Mrs. Smith played on those facts and was manipulative. She was jealous of mama’s spirit, youth and promise. She didn’t want her to become successful, but wanted to take credit for whatever she was able to achieve. Mama did achieve, and it went against Mrs. Smith agenda. She wanted to keep an upper hand, maintain her charitable appearance to feed her own insecurities, which were many.
With “Living Right”, I took a different approach, involving romance and religion, but the message is the same. Some friends want to keep you where you are and take credit for your accomplishments. Do you know anyone like that?
The End