A dollar, a dream and a printed MapQuest.  It was 12am on a late summer night and I was hitting the road solo to Houston. My fresh start was 500 miles away. The car was overflowing with everything I owned with no clear view out of the back window. Walmart bags of college dorm goods from a $300 layaway that I paid off throughout that 2005 summer. I had completed my high school requirements a semester early and worked my ass off to save up for August. At the very last minute I

Dear Mama,  16 and pregnant. I understand why you hid it from your parents for as long as you could. Your own childhood memories riddled with drugs, raging alcoholics, violence. Racism. You knew they’d be livid that you’d soon give birth to a little mixed girl.  But you chose motherhood, still. What a blessing it was to end up at that alternative school that had a daycare on site where you could balance growing up, being a teenager and a mama. Thank God for your grandma, Merl