There is poor and then there is powdered eggs poor.
Along with its more famous cousin, government cheese, powdered eggs were a staple in the boxes of food that my family received from the welfare office. If you slapped the cheese between a couple pieces of Betsy Ross and grilled it in a slab of butter you could momentarily forget that your parents were in prison and your sagging, swaying home was the physical manifestation of your broken-down life. Powdered eggs, on the other hand, should only be served to those who commit crimes on humanity.
In addition to the boxes of food that we received, we also got food stamps. If I went viral for starting a brawl in the school carpool lane or for sh*tting myself in the middle seat of a booked to capacity airplane, I wouldn’t be more embarrassed than I was as a teenager when my grandmother pulled out a booklet of food stamps. I would bend down and tie my shoe, if it needed it or not. I would walk outside. I would plot the slow, agonizing death of the cashier who sighed loudly as she judged the contents of our cart.
My grandmother always splurged on cereal, name brand, for my brother, sister and me.
She would tell anyone who cared and even those who didn’t, “These babies are not to blame for what has happened to them. They’ve made enough sacrifices. They get to keep their cereal.”
We all loved it. The more sugar and impossible to pronounce ingredients the better. As soon as we got home from the store, we would rip the box open and pour whole milk over huge bowls of it. Happy. Normal. Just for a bit.
I still love little kid cereal. I don’t eat it anymore because I know that the first bite would send me into a tailspin of a bender where my loved ones would find me in a ditch covered in Fruity Pebble boxes and in desperate need of insulin.
And, the other day, cereal made me cry. In Target. I was walking down the cereal aisle and was flooded with grief for my little brother. I was blindsided. I have walked down the cereal aisle hundreds of times since my brother Zack died and haven’t had to bite the inside of my jaw until I tasted the metal ting of blood to keep myself from audibly sobbing. But, on this day I did.
I wanted to buy all the cereal. I wanted to fill up that hole in my soul with Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Honey Smacks.
I needed Snap, Crackle and Pop to tell my beautiful, green-eyed, kind-hearted little brother that I was sorry.
I am sorry that he was alone on a cold jail cell floor, a floor he didn’t deserve to be on, when he died. I’m sorry that I was arrogant and thought that I had all the answers. I’m sorry that he’ll never get to see the ocean again or feel the sun on his skin. I’m sorry that I didn’t hug him tighter and tell him that no matter what he was still the first boy I love. I’m sorry that I foolishly assumed that we had more time.
Just so damn sorry.
I’m sorry that we’ll never again smile at each other over our bowls of cereal.
Happy. Normal. Just for a bit.
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
