A year after my mother died my brother and I went to visit the only family we had truly known. The summer of 1992 everything was great, we flew on an airplane for the first time in our lives. Getting off the plane in Detroit was a great feeling I remember my grandma, sister aunt and cousins all standing at the gate waiting for us. I don’t remember having any eerie feelings about being there, I knew my mom wouldn’t be there but being with my family was all I needed. At first my brother and I stayed at our grandma’s house but of course we didn’t want to stay there every night, we had cousins to play with and my sister had moved with our aunt so we wanted to be where she was. My aunt owned a hair salon so she took out the braids I had in my hair and put a long weave ponytail in. I had very short hair the ponytail was barely holding on. I don’t know why my aunt thought it would be a good idea for me to visit my mother’s boyfriend but she did. She took me to meet with him at a park. I remember being there and him telling me I looked just like my mom and my hair was pretty just like my sister’s. I couldn’t even be there in that moment because I remember having images of him fighting with my mom playing in my head and after meeting my real father I knew this man was not it. After leaving there I started to feel like no one loved my mom, like why would my aunt take me to meet with this man who clearly wasn’t my father and contributed to my mother’s death. That doesn’t make sense does it 1 + 1 doesn’t = 3 right? Children are always told to stay in a child’s place but what do you do when that place isn’t safe? If you have children please talk to them and listen, really listen they have thoughts and feelings that are real. They may be children now but they will one day grow up and wonder how they were taught 1 + 1= 2 but right now it’s not adding up.