The One Light

A turning point in our lives

 

Michael White, 3/30/2008

Rough Draft

We were starting over, like so many times we had to start over, this time it was just me and mom. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and mom’s new job gave her a gift certificate for Alpha Beta – it paid for our food for the next few days until she got paid again. We had just moved, to a new place, well new for us, a two bedroom apartment with a fireplace and small kitchen. Our pillow cases were stuffed with clean clothes, our sheets were used as the curtains, and thankfully we figured out how to get the furnace working since we had nothing to keep us warm.   With the twenty-dollar certificate, we got food, a pan and one light bulb.

Thanksgiving dinner was laid out on a big rectangular box I found, with fake biscuits, government cheese and chicken soup. We were happy, because we had gone through a lot of crap to have this mediocre independence. We joked about the thirty-cent light, it was moved from room to room, Kitchen, hall-way bathroom then back. We named it: The One Light.

The One Light, it was our turning point, it shown as our light to life and independence. Living up to now sucked, we lived in the back of people’s homes, transits with no place to live. Hotels were a treat because I didn’t have to worry about hot water or bugs in the bed. We were moving on up, because down was only one more step to living in a shelter or worse.  The One Light, it was a treasure even though it shined a light on a meager beginning.

Bedding, curtains and a dining room table (card table) was the height of elegance for us, but damn it we were warm fed and loved.