Minnie Lee

I woke up last night, unable to sleep, thinking about all the things in the world that aren’t so important when it is daylight. I hate it when I do that because everything at 3:00 am is so much more depressing than it would be at 8:00 or 9:00 am. I lay there a long time, tossing and turning, mulling the fact that my writing and pockets were nearing empty this week. Damn recession. What can I blame the writing on? That’s when Minnie Lee came to visit.

I met Minnie when my son was in kindergarten. She was a scrawny thing, dressed in hand-me-downs that had seen better days, and her hair was full of braids and mismatched barrettes. She didn’t stand out as being less fortunate because, god knows, there were probably 5 more in the class that had it as bad as she did. They were clean for the most part, spiffed up for the first days of class in whatever good clothes they owned. You didn’t notice the details when you walked in, they were all excited to start school and a new adventure. It took a few times of visiting to realize how bad off some of these kids were.

There are some things in this world that should not be, like murder or rape or incest. Children growing up in poverty has to be one of the worst and Minnie Lee was my introduction to that heartbreak. These kids were raised in a poverty stricken neighborhood that fed into our school district and I never knew how bad these kids had it until I saw it for myself when I would volunteer in the class. They had coats that did not fit. There were no hats on their heads or gloves on their hands on the most freezing of days. They ate whatever the lunch lady served—there were no finicky eaters amongst this bunch. They didn’t have shoes that fit or pants that reached the ground. One little girl shared with me the bite marks on her finger tips that she said came from “the rats”. It broke my heart, but these were things I could not fix. I could only give them love and attention for the time that I was there, and pray that their lives would get better.
Minnie stood out among the crowd only because she fought her situation. At five, she knew she was different, and she didn’t like it. She wanted attention, and because she didn’t know how to get it, she acted out. She poked girls in the washroom line, wiggled during story time, sang at the top of her lungs in music. She wouldn’t sit in her chair. She wouldn’t share crayons. Minnie’s name was constantly being yelled, and she would smile a silly grin as if she was just awarded Student of the Week. Bad attention for Minnie was better than no attention at all. Fortunately, Mrs. Applegate was a veteran and understood her need. Minnie was given a lot of positive attention as well, but she was never as proud as when she misbehaved.

Time went on and it was a common sight to see Minnie out in the hall or visiting the principal’s office. She had a permanent spot in the chair outside the office door and she sat there proud as the Queen of England when she was there. I would stop and chat with her, ask her what she was doing, but she had no shame, no remorse. This was still better than what she had at home. No yelling, stern lectures or cajoling could convince Minnie that this was no way to get through school. She was so determined in her quest for attention, so strong willed, that most of the staff had pretty much given up on her. They wrote her off by the end of kindergarten.

I was at school the very first week of first grade and I was in charge of sharpening the kids’ pencils from their supply boxes. Every desk was lined up neatly and their colorful name tags taped to the top of their desk. Each child had their supply box on the top corner of their desk, ready for the tasks ahead. They were full of brand new pencils and pristine erasers. There were shiny new scissors, a new box of crayons, glues sticks and rulers ready for eager hands. What potential lie in that small box on the desk. Everyone except Minnie Lee.

Minnie had no box. She showed up for the first day of school with a Ziploc bag of broken crayons and a couple of chewed up pencils with the erasers worn off. I don’t remember if she had a glue stick, but I do remember that Mrs. Durbin had given her an empty Kleenex box to put her collection in. When I came to her desk, my heart sank. How do you start the school year with the lame remnants of last year? How can you be creative with broken crayons that you have to strip the paper off to reach any color? How do you learn math and not have an eraser? There is such hope and excitement in new school supplies. Do you remember how excited it was to shop for them as a kid?! A new year, a new pencil, a new start. This poor kid was just continuing her already pathetic start.

I went home and shared my finding with a good friend, and we both cried. How can hope be snuffed out in someone so young? How do we stand by and not help? And how far do you help? We couldn’t solve Minnie’s poverty problem, but we could give her a fresh start in school. Maybe a fresh start will give her a fresh attitude. We put together supplies from our overstock at home, and found an extra box to put them in. My friend painted Minnie’s name on the top in rainbow colors, the kind that first grade girls love so much. I stopped at the school when the kids were at lunch and replaced her sad little box with the new one. Mrs. Durbin knew who did it, but I don’t think Minnie ever did, and that wasn’t important. What was important is that little girl felt special for one tiny moment in her life. I only imagine her face when she came back from lunch.

Minnie never changed. She struggled with her lessons. She wore clothes that were too small for her. She paraded a worn polyester nightgown with Cinderella’s picture faded on the front for her Halloween costume that year. She sat on her thrown by the front office far too often. Things weren’t going to change anytime soon for Minnie and that broke my heart. I wanted to grab that kid, throw her into a warm tub of overflowing bubbles and dress her in the finest dress. I wanted her to wear party shoes and paint her fingernails. I wanted to braid her hair and put in matching barrettes. I wanted to fill her tummy with good food and sweet candies. I wanted her life to be different. I wanted. I wanted.

Minnie’s family moved late in the year and I never saw her again. I was hopeful for her until I learned that her young parents were having yet more marital problems and mom took the eight kids to live with family in Ford Heights. She went from the frying pan into the fire. My heart sank. What will become of Minnie? I couldn’t even begin to think of what she was experiencing and I couldn’t help her.

So, in the dark, I dream of Minnie. What became of her? Is she in school? Does she eat well? I hope she isn’t on drugs. Why do I think the answers to these questions are as scary at 8:00 a.m. as they are at 3:00 a.m.? Minnie haunts me.