my name is michelle

“It was just the three of us.  And dad was a truck driver so he was gone most of the time.  It could be a lot of stress.  My mom was almost like a single mother.  On my third birthday we moved to a small house outside of Denver.  Next door there lived an older couple named Arlene and Bill, and they started talking to me through the fence.  My first memory is Arlene handing me strawberries from her garden.  It was a wonderful connection.  After a few months, I knocked on their door, sat down in their living room, and said: ‘Will you guys be my grandparents?’  It was so silly.  They could have laughed it off.  But instead they started crying.  They printed out an adoption certificate and hung it on their living room wall.  That certificate remained until I left for college.  They became so important to me.  Their house was a refuge.  Bill was the kind of grandfather that always smelled like oil.  He taught me to drive everything.  He was always fixing stuff.  But he’d stop anything to sit down with me and have a glass of tea.  Arlene was the type of grandmother that loved crafts, which was perfect for a kid.  We were always putting tiny sequins on things.  Both of them supported me in all my dreams.  Through all my phases.  They encouraged me to apply for college, even though I didn’t have the money to go.  And when I got accepted, they presented me with a fund.  They told me they’d been putting away money since the day I adopted them.  Since I’ve become an adult, I’ve learned more about my grandparents.  They both grew up poor.  Arlene struggled with alcoholism when she was young, and that’s why they never had children.  Their lives weren’t as perfect as they seemed through the fence.  My grandmother passed away in 2013.  It was two days before our adoption anniversary.  My grandfather gave her eulogy.  And at the end, he said: ‘Arlene leaves behind her husband Bill.  And the greatest joy of her life her granddaughter Katie.’” #quarantinestories

“I was thirty years old.  The economy had collapsed.  My husband had just passed away.  I had two young children.  I was working as a teacher but it wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t enough to send my kids to school.  It wasn’t even enough to feed a family.  So I found an agency that helps you find jobs overseas.  They taught me to work in other peoples’ homes: how to cook, how to clean, things like that.  On the day that I left Indonesia, my children were four and six.  I brought them to my sister’s house.  I explained I had to go to work.  Just ‘go to work.’  That’s all I said.  I’ve been gone now for almost twenty-five years.  I could only visit my children every two years, when I was given a vacation.  But I did provide for them.  I sent all my money to my sister.  I paid for their school.  And they did well.  They are both in pharmacy school now.  But recently they’ve told me how much I hurt them.  They’re older now and I guess they think I can take it.  They told me how everyone else had a mom.  And how hard it was for them.  I always wonder what life would have been like if my husband hadn’t died.  Sometimes I blame myself.  I left my children.  What kind of mother leaves her children?  I still have one year on my contract, but after that I want to go back to Indonesia.  I’ve grown old already.  I hope I can become closer to my kids.  I have two grandchildren now.  I want to know them.  I just hope I can make it better.” (Hong Kong)

— Hawkins, Rachel. Demonglass.

Yeah.

— Joan Bauer, Almost Home